What a load of bankers

I like Munich, but Munich hates me. Let me explain.

First of all, it’s taken nearly a week and about 50 telephone calls to find a place to live. This, apparently, is not unusual.

However, the place I found – which vastly exceeds my price range – demands a cash deposit of 1000 Euros and I, with my debit card, can only withdraw 300 pounds per day. Not a problem you might think, just go to the bank with your passport and hey presto. Well, you’d be wrong.

While Barclays bank claimed on the phone that I would be able to withdraw up to 1000 pounds from Deutsche Bank, the people at DB told me this was not true. Having spent most of the morning on the phone to Barclays, I was spitting with rage by this time and threw a minor wobbly in the foyer of Deutsche Bank.

Cue horrified stares from Germans, who are generally unprepared to question the rules, no matter how flagrantly stupid those rules may be.

So I turned to the exiles friend, Western Union, who allowed me to spend half an hour filling out an online money transfer form, before telling me right at the end that you cannot transfer money to yourself. All of which means my poor father has had to be mobilised to trawl London for Western Union agents so that he can make a transfer for me.

But what could I have done if I hadn’t had my parents to fall back on? Well, sweet F.A. it appears. The combined forces of two of the world’s biggest banks and a global money transfer network are unable to help me transfer cash between Europe’s largest economies.

Frankly, in the digital age, I find that ridiculous.