Tips and Tricks : Moving to UK

[Nysuatro]

Hey all,

As some may have read, I will be working as a Technical Artist at Codemasters in Birmingham. I am still in Finland for the moment, but I will be moving to UK around the beginning of August.

I would like to ask to those who live in UK if there are any things I have to know or prepare myself for when searching for an apartment and arranging my stay at UK.

- What do you need to be able to start a bank account in the UK?

- What phone service is the best and do they have prepaid cards?

- What internet service is a good choice?

- Things I have to be aware of in Birmingham?

- You know someone who wants to share an apartment?

- ...

Already thanks for your help

[Vilham]

Hey all,

As some may have read, I will be working as a Technical Artist at Codemasters in Birmingham. I am still in Finland for the moment, but I will be moving to UK around the beginning of August.

I would like to ask to those who live in UK if there are any things I have to know or prepare myself for when searching for an apartment and arranging my stay at UK.

- What do you need to be able to start a bank account in the UK?

You will need your passport or birth certificate and a proof of your home address I think.

- What phone service is the best and do they have prepaid cards?

They are all the same tbh, not sure what a prepaid card is but we have pay as you go or contracts.

- What internet service is a good choice?

None of them are amazing but BT or Virgin are ok.

- Things I have to be aware of in Birmingham?

Just stay away from the shitty parts of Birmingham like council estates.

- You know someone who wants to share an apartment?

- ...

Already thanks for your help

[knj]

And be prepared for the UK's beautiful weather :-)

[sarge mat]

- What internet service is a good choice?

- Things I have to be aware of in Birmingham?

I have always used BT and they are fine. None are out standing though.

Been through it once or twice, quicker to list what you don't have to be aware of Its suppose to be quite nice in some parts so I am told, just watch out for bad areas. Suppose to have the best curry in this part of the world too.

[Thrik]

In the UK you either get BT lines or Virgin lines: BT own all the copper lines and Virgin own all the fibre optic lines. BT allow other ISPs to use their lines at varying prices and speeds, whereas Virgin do it all alone.

If you can I'd go with Be* or TalkTalk. They both use BT's lines and serve up to 24mb/s depending on your distance from the exchange, and neither do the kind of traffic management crap and OTT 'fair use' capping that BT and most others do.

Virgin is a good alternative (up to 50mb/s) if you're too far away from a BT exchange to get good speeds, but they do have quite an aggressive traffic management policy which could be a concern if you do a lot of heavy downloading.

[Nysuatro]

Thanks guys for the replies. Good stuff!

[the0rthopaedicsurgeon]

I live just outside of Birmingham in Walsall (I actually applied to Codemasters too but by the time my emails got through the position was gone |: ), a lot of parts are really rough but you probably get that in most cities. I'm on Virgin Media and they used to be really unreliable but the last few years I've had no problems, and they also permanently double your speed every so often which is nice.

[Rick_D]

- What do you need to be able to start a bank account in the UK?

your employment contract, passport, proof of address - probably only the last two but employment contract will help considering you are a dirty foreigner

- What phone service is the best and do they have prepaid cards?

O2 is a genrally good service but they re all the same, and yes prepaid cards exist for every network

- What internet service is a good choice?

Virgin, BT are shit, Virgin are also shit but they are more reliable and there's a lot less fucking around. if you go with a small company that uses BT's lines you need to live in the right address, have to qualify for certain clauses blah blah. Virgin will drill a hole in a listed building to get you internet. they don't fuck around. also it's cheap for the speeds.

- Things I have to be aware of in Birmingham?

it's a shit hole filled with scum. if you like indian food then you're going to love it. but it's a dirty concrete-infested city filled with people who don't care about it, poverty is rife as everybody knows it's shit and the jobs are crap.

the public transport is shite, you can choose from a train that stops miles away from where you want to be, or a bus filled with chav scum that runs once every 30 minutes.

try and live close to your office. ask the HR department at codies if they can reccomend you some nice areas to live, cause if you're gonna live in a shit hole at least try and live with normal suburban people who won't stab you for a fiver.

and finally: get a transfer o another codies office as soon as you can, make up some shit about needing to live closer to your family, lie about having a wife or a sick aunt or something, just get out of the midlands. codies have offices down south and fucking christ the south is shit but a hundred times better than the north.

- You know someone who wants to share an apartment?

ask your HR department if they can post a notice or a company email asking if a new guy can house-share. you never know, it's worth a shot. otherwise you have to search through classifieds and house-sharing websites and every single one i have seen (i thought about it for a while) would mean you living with the most retarded piece of human shit. think about the kind of people that put up those adverts. cunts.

everybody i know that house-shared has moved into their own place as soon as possible. housing is cheap as shit in the midlands anyway. because it is shit.

- ...

enjoy yourself, there's some good people in the UK, make friends and contacts, but get out of the midlands as soon as you can.

oh and say hello to Andrew Finch when you see him.

[D3ads]

Well I live in Nottingham, about 2 hours from Birmingham and although it's hardly the most shining example of an English city, it's miles better than the latter! I've heard nothing but bad things from people who've lived there and my experiences of visiting the place have been less than rosy.. but everywhere has it's bad parts, at least you're not having to live in Hull or Middlesborough.. someone needs to drop a fucking Chav bomb on those towns!

[sarge mat]

Middlesborough upgraded every shit hole I had been too, to a non shit hole. God awful place.

[Nysuatro]

Thanks for the information. I hope I don't get stabbed daily, hehe

I will be contacting my HR for sure.

You maybe know some good sites for finding an apartment? I already got some, but I guess the more the better.

[PogoP]

I would say go with BT for line rental, and Be There for internet. Virgin are fucking shite and they have a bullshit 'traffic management' scheme which means they limit your internet download speed to like 0.00001kb/s (seriously, from my experience, thats not even a joke).

Birmingham has a reputation for being a bit 'rough', but there are plenty of nice areas there too. Where are you travelling from?

[Nysuatro]

For the moment I am still in Finland. But I will be going from Belgium to UK. Probably by high speed train.

But it looks like there is no direct high speed train to Birmingham. Only one to London and then I have to take the slow train to Birmingham = crap

Airplane is so fucking expensive from Brussels to Birmingham.

[dux]

Birmingham. Unlucky. I'd advise you don't stay for long.

[Vilham]

- Things I have to be aware of in Birmingham?

it's a shit hole filled with scum. if you like indian food then you're going to love it. but it's a dirty concrete-infested city filled with people who don't care about it, poverty is rife as everybody knows it's shit and the jobs are crap.

the public transport is shite, you can choose from a train that stops miles away from where you want to be, or a bus filled with chav scum that runs once every 30 minutes.

try and live close to your office. ask the HR department at codies if they can reccomend you some nice areas to live, cause if you're gonna live in a shit hole at least try and live with normal suburban people who won't stab you for a fiver.

and finally: get a transfer o another codies office as soon as you can, make up some shit about needing to live closer to your family, lie about having a wife or a sick aunt or something, just get out of the midlands. codies have offices down south and fucking christ the south is shit but a hundred times better than the north.

Hahaha, fucking amazing.