A Bug's Life

I have spent the afternoon fruitlessly wrangling with financial Internet sites, first trying to buy something then trying to set up a PayPal account. I tried setting up a PayPal account 2-3 years ago, jumped a load of hurdles but fell at Verification: our joint bank account was already linked to major_clanger's PayPal account and could not be linked to a second PayPal account. So I just added my e-mail to his account, and we have been sharing.

Now I have a separate bank account, I thought it would be worth trying again. This time I got through several more hurdles, but stuck on the Direct Debit mandate. The trouble is that my bank's correct address is PO Box whatever, BX1 9ZZ. BX1 is not a geographical postcode; there is no city associated with it. PayPal insists, however, that I enter a valid city in the City field. I ended up going with 'not applicable' which was accepted though may trigger some error handling in the Royal Mail's automated address-reading system. This irks me!!

On the good side, while researching the postcode I found the Strange Maps blog, a fascinating collection of map representations of all kinds of information. If I were still working in large customer databases, I would be printing out the Postcode Map of Great Britain to stick on my wall :-)