As frustrating as it has been dealig with various administrative problems at the College (thanks to Melanie in the Dean's Office, things improved after the previous low piont), it all pales next to the evilness of banks and Visa. I opened an account to manage all the funds for this trip; surely it would help not to muddy the waters between my money and the college's, I thought.
But an account with large amounts of money that also exit the account in large amounts "raises flags" as they say. So now that I tried to do one of the last things -- pay for the tickets at the Globe, I can't because their machine declines to accept my card. While it sounds like a polite Austenian phrase, it means that I can't get the tickets. The students are already looking forward to Othello (with Tim McInnerny!), so it is important to get the tickets, but neither my bank nor Visa will help.
It's a technicality that leaves me in a grey area. There's no hold on my account, they bank hastened to tell me, but it's been flagged because of the level of transactions. So, the Globe declines to accept a charge from that card, because they can. I guess the simplest thing is to charge it to my own account and transfer the money later. Of course, by the time I decided to do that (after many long conversations with the bank) the box office closed for the day.
So I'm having my soup, listening to Patti Smith's newest, and muttering dark utterings about banks.
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