First Post on the Bugle
Much like Togaboy, I too have known the near-sexual pleasure of inviting my erstwhile financial overlords to whistle for it, from the comfort and safety of the other side of the world. And what made it all the sweeter was that my debtors were none other than… …drum roll… …The Student Loans Company. Can I get a woop-woop?

For those who haven’t had the pleasure, crippling debt to these darkly malignant tumours on the ringpiece of Britain is the fiscal burden of choice for anyone who has the brass-balled audacity to attempt to educate themselves without a trust fund/hereditary life-peerage/uncle on the civil list.

Anyhoo, after several weeks on the phone attempting to defer repayment due to distinct lack of clay urinary receptacle, coupled with a grim determination to spunk my sub-atomic wage packet on weak lager and nutritionally questionable take-aways in the here & now, as opposed to weak lager and nutritionally questionable take-aways I’d shovelled down my kite in 1997, the bitter Glasweigan phone monkey informed me in a blisteringly smug tone that “I’m afraid we don’t do that sir”

“You clearly do. It says so on the back of this threatening letter”.

Cranking the smug up to 11, he replied “It’s actually a little more complicated than that sir”. I swear to Vishnu he actually purred as he said this. Cue three years of threats, abusive letters, arbitrary charges, and legally murky attempts to coerce my family into payment (luckily my mum is absolutely nails, and tolerates precisely none of this malarkey).

Eventually I move to the capital, accidentally score semi-lucrative employment with Britain’s 117th most respected cable TV company, and decide to get these parasites off my back for good. Their initial proposal – monthly repayments equal to those of, say, Mozambique – was not met with approval, but eventually a deal was struck.

Then I emigrated. And so to the point.

A single payment by direct debit, of a fixed amount, on the same day of each month, is admittedly a difficult concept for a loan company to grasp, but throw in a new debit day, a change of address and wire transfers to my UK account in a Aussie dollars, and the pilot of their collective brain ship suffered a stroke at the wheel. Letters were sent requesting the entire amount in full within 7 days.

During the subsequent call to an equally smug phone gimp (do they take smuggery classes?), something happened that tipped me over the edge. I’d almost reached the end of my rope trying to explain my situation, and asked to speak to a supervisor, and the phone gimp… …laughed. He actually chuckled at me. Something deep within me buckled to breaking point, and I cut loose.

“OK. You’re in Glasgow, in January, facing the wrong end of an 8-hour call centre shift with only a bollock-freezing lunch hour to break the tedium. I’m currently sitting on my balcony on Sydney’s northern beaches, sipping a glass of shiraz so massive it could drown a small family cat. My back yard has a fucking palm tree in it. So option 1) I’m going to make regular repayments, when I decide to, in the manner in which I choose, and you are going to help me. Option 2) You never hear from me again”.

It worked a treat, and what’s more, oh God it felt good.

Apologies for longevity of ongoing genitalia joke.
(Monkey Tennis isn't Spartacus, Thu 30 Nov 2006, 13:50, Reply)