The dentists

I have to say after todays experience I am rapidly shedding any lingering childhood fears of that most dreaded of institutions, the dentists chair. Today I went to get my "broken" tooth looked at and much to my (pleasant) surprise was told that a filling had merely fallen out and that for 35 pounds I could have it replaced. In under 10 minutes there I was being bustled out of the chair and back down to reception to pay! Needless to say both I and my bank manager are very happy about this :)
On a slightly different note I had an amusing experience in the reception as I tried to pay with my brand new credit card from First Direct. I was asked for my pin (in the UK they have a new tech called "chip and pin" which is meant to do away with signing for things) and the transaction was declined. That in itself was odd as I had only openned the PIN this morning and I was almost certain that I had it right (after all its my job to keep memorised a large amount of psuedo random numbers / words). I asked them, somewhat sheepishly (why is it I feel like a criminal when asking them to do this?) to put it through so that I could sign for it instead. The lady did that but it was declined again. Now this was surprising as I have used the card already with no problems, anyway I paid with another card and called First Direct on my walk home to find out what was going on, and to get rid of that nagging feeling that I was again about to be taken for a ride to the tune of 5k pounds like I was with my first bank account over here. After some conversations it turns out that first direct were having a problem with their "systems" and that all credit cards they had were being declined, the ETA on the fix was a "few hours sir". I hung up chuckling to myself. Can you imagine a bank anywhere else in the world where a system could fall over and NO credit card transaction were able to be processed for HOURS? Rule Brittania, Brittania rules .... something I am sure.