Solo - No Sir

What a very nice day we've had today, even though it ended in fiasco.

NatWest will have some difficult questions to answer on monday as well.

This morning we set off for the short 30 minutes drive to Skipton, a nice leisurely browse around the saturday market on the High Street and then dinner (or lunch to you southern nancies) in a pub in the Yorkshire Dales somewhere.

Thats the good thing about living to the north of Leeds, you are in the Dales within ten minutes of leaving home and the scenery soon changes to the trademark high-sided flat-bottomed glacially formed valleys, stone walls and small market towns scattered randomly along the valley floors.

Thanks to Yorkshire Water who have set road works every 500 yards or so along the road to Ilkley, we arrived in Skipton after one hours worth of queueing all the way, but nevertheless we spent a pleasant couple of hours browsing the old High Street and buying a few things from the market stall holders.

Time for dinner, and so we left Skipton and headed for Harrogate, passing a few acres of the United States of America at their Menwith Hill base and on to the Nelson pub, a place that we'd used before. Its OK as Brewers Fayre type pubs go, nothing spectacular with the choice of food, or beer, but its big enough to cope and its open all afternoon.

Bought the beer in cash and then sat down to pick from the predictable "steak or chicken" menu - chose our three dishes and I went to the food counter to order. The young lad behind the counter took the order then took my debit card to pay for it, he swiped the card and looked at the till with a puzzled face, fortunately his manager was passing and he asked him to look at the till as, in the young lads words "we don't take NatWest do we ?"

I kept quiet rather than embarrass the kid, his manager swiped the card, the till refused again, the manager looked at the card, "ah, its a Solo card" he declared, "we don't take Solo"

I just stared back at him then very quietly repeated "You don't take Solo ?"

"Well sometimes we do, but this till won't" and he handed my card back to me.

They both stared at me, presumably waiting for me to give them a card that their fekkin till would be happy with, and I could have, I had Mastercards in my wallet, but to be honest I was a bit pissed off with their till not accepting Solo cards, it was lazy on their part, I noticed that they didn't have any PIN equipment fitted yet and as one of the principles of Solo is that all transactions have to be authorised then that was probably the reason why their till was getting a refusal from their online transaction handler - they couldn't provide a PIN number, they couldn't provide it, their equipment couldn't handle it, after two years notice and after most transaction providers have nagged retailers for all of that time (they have with my business), they still haven't got around to updating their tills to handle the new secure technology.

At times like this I don't get mad, I never get mad, not for me is it acceptable to bang table tops and raise voices, no, at times like this I just get stubborn.

"Well you'd better cancel the order then" I told them quietly, and took my Solo card back.

They both stared at me as though I was crazy, they'd seen the mastercards in my wallet and assumed I'd use them instead and for 30 seconds we all stared at each other until the manager muttered "sorry" and went back to the kitchen.

Of course I had to explain to Suzanne and Jodie why, starving as we were, we weren't going to be eating here, and of course they asked why I didn't use a mastercard to pay for the dinner, to which I just shrugged my shoulders and gave them my pissed off look, they understood immediately, its the same look that has made me walk out of hundreds of shops that make me queue for too long.

So we drove a couple of miles to another pub that I know, the Red Lion near Ripley, this pub is famous for its meals, the car park is packed on most dinnertimes and evenings and people drive from miles around to go to this pub.

But when we got there, there was only three cars in the car park and then one of them left. I walked to the pub entrance, it all seemed very quiet inside but it had lights on, and then as I got to the front door I saw the sign "Cash only, no debit or credit cards", turning round with a quiet "fuck you then" I got back in the car and explained to Suzanne and Jodie that we wouldn't be eating here either, it was starting to get farcical and we all had a laugh when Suzanne asked "how do they make a living then" and while looking around the car park realised her answer was right there in front of us, they don't appear to be making a living at all at the moment.

And so it was a drive over Killinghall moor towards Otley and some more pub/restaurants, until we came to a "road closed" sign that had us diverted back into Harrogate with an involuntary "for fucks sake" from me, this was getting funnier and funnier.

We ended up in Harry Ramsdens in Guiseley, the original Harry Ramsdens, the one and only Harry Ramsdens, and we went and sat in the posh restaurant to eat thirty quids worth of fish and chips and very nice they were too but more importantly Harry Ramsdens accept Solo cards, glory fukkin halleluiah, a trader who isn't afraid to embrace technology, one of the oldest fish and chip shops in the world and they've got PIN machines and everything, thank you Harry Ramsden.

Still, on Monday I will be walking around the corner to my NatWest bank and asking them why they have replaced my former Switch card with a Solo card. From what I have read on this here t'interweb about Solo cards, they were introduced to enable people who were previously thought unsuitable to be handling Switch and credit cards to join in the plastic card revolution, basically a Solo transaction has to be authorised every time it is swiped whereas the transaction handler can authorise Switch transactions without such authorisation from the issuing bank - in other words a Solo card is for poor people and those who cannot be trusted to manage their own accounts properly, I've only held my account at NatWest for thirty years now, I only have four personal and business accounts in my name with them, I only have a mortgage on my house with NatWest, I wonder how much more fekking security they need from me before they'll fekkin trust me with a fekkin Switch card again, the bastards.