An Icelandic Ash Story

There are a lot of people not where they should be today. Before we left the Village, Alex was getting calls from members of her staff who were caught up in the Icelandic Ash situation. One in Hawaii with her California residing corporate mother, one just married in Albania to overcome her partner’s deportation order from UK, one adventurer in Poland, one on honeymoon in Spain, one at a conference in New York, and the last with family in Turkey. The Icelandic ash has dislocated a lot of people. It even drilled down as far as the Village with some stuck in faraway places. But the situation, while exasperating for those involved as well as financially challenging for the knowledge economy (yawn), does open all sorts of possibilities arising from unplanned situations. Could these few days change people’s lives in any significant way? Could this be fodder for the plots of novels and plays? We were totally unaffected as we drove and ferried back from the Village to the Piccadilly Line.

It’s time to open the joint bank account. So this morning, we both dodged out of work after checking our respective in-boxes and met at the bank armed with passports, utility bills, debit cards, cheque books, driving licences and all the other paraphernalia required for the process. The bank was empty! Was everyone out of town because of the Icelandic Ash? I approached the bullet proof glass screen and stated why we were there. The girl’s look combined puzzlement with a complete lack of interest. She called her friend over. Her friend looked at the computer screen. Then asked us had we brought ID. I was fully prepared and listed our entire catalogue of proofs of ID. She looked back at the screen. You can see an adviser at 12.00. Well, I quietly seethed, do they want our business or don’t they. Alex signalled to me to calm down so we sloped off for coffee.

Back at the branch at high noon, our adviser went through our application and all our evidence, and entered data painstakingly into the computer. He then telephoned someone and rattled out a list of numbers. We could hear the disembodied voice on the other end of his line. The adviser looked at me accusingly. Did you use to live at …. ? Well yes I did, but that was back in 1997, I said. So much information, so little knowledge. There were more numbers exchanged over the phone, then he put the phone on hold and asked me for a post code which I wrote on a piece of paper and slid across the table to him in silence. You see, the person on the line must not know that we are there in earshot. All the while he looked anxiously at the screen and moved and clicked the mouse from time to time. With the phone still stuck to his ear, he eventually, gave us a big, nodding smile and the thumbs up. We had a joint bank account. It had taken three full feeds of the parking meter but, at last, we are now united formally by something. I wonder, though, should our adviser have not made more of an occasion of it and said something like, I now pronounce you credit worthy - you may kiss your co account holder.

We shook his hand and thanked him as we were leaving. He then told us with some pride that we were his first joint account. The person who normally does the opening of joint accounts at the branch was stuck in Rome because of the Icelandic Ash.