r/BritishSuccess

Mum and baby doing amazing, shoutout to all the staff on the maternity ward and the NHS in general. Just got home after 22 hours awake to a delicious cold beer to celebrate!

Had one of those journeys yesterday where every connection was technically possible as long as absolutely nothing went wrong.

Naturally, the first train sat outside a station for about 20 minutes and I watched my connection disappear on the app while we were still crawling along. My ticket was for a specific train, so I was already preparing myself for the usual conversation about buying another one and trying to claim it back later.

Got to the platform, explained what happened to the conductor on the next service and showed him the delayed journey on my phone.

He looked at it for maybe three seconds and just went, "Yeah, course. Get on."

That was it. No sending me to the ticket office, no forms, no debate about which company operated which bit of the journey. I actually asked, "That's alright?" because apparently I've been conditioned to expect at least some mild administrative suffering.

Made it home about 40 minutes later than planned, but weirdly in a much better mood than if everything had run perfectly.

Sometimes British success is simply encountering a person who sees an obvious problem and fixes it without making you complete a small quest first.

Been having problems with depth perception and such. Things looking too big and others looking too small, feeling myself shrink to the size of a doll, the table looking a mile long, you get the idea. Episodes all last minimum an hour each time. I was absolutely shitting myself because I knew what I saw wasn’t real while actively seeing it, but didn’t want to contact my gp. Called Samaritans because I needed to talk to someone I didn’t know about the anxiety it gave me. It’s fine if a stranger on the phone thinks I’m off my rocker. The lovely woman said if it was distressing me so much I should contact my gp to get it checked out. Ended up sending a request in after the call on Monday evening.

Wake up just after 9am Tuesday morning because I’m 20 and neither of my jobs had me in. Gp is calling me. I tell him I’m not crazy and I’ve lived my life completely raw, no (non prescription) drugs. Like, not even caffeine. When I’m feeling wild I have a lemonade or orange juice instead of water. He gives me a referral to an urgent eye health check. I book with Specsavers because they picked up the phone. Same day 1155. I ask how much it’ll be because the gp said it would be free and I wanted to be mentally prepared if not. They say it’ll cost money, but don’t know how much. Fuck.

Get to the high street 1 hour early because I’m chronically too early. Sit on a bench near the Specsavers and the pigeons crowding by their entrance suddenly become fucking massive so I decide to seek shelter. I am the size of an ant but manage to safely sneak past the evolved dinosaurs. Tell the lovely Specsavers receptionist I absolutely know I’m rudely early (40 minutes!) but don’t expect to be seen early, I just want to sit inside.

Get called in 1130! There’s more than an hour of various tests; I cry a bit because I know what I’m seeing isn’t real but nothing is the right size and I feel like I’m going crazy. It’s also a little embarrassing because I work in a business on the high street and don’t want the people I could potentially make drunk to know I see shit. The very kind ex receptionist/current ophthalmologist says my eyes are healthy but asks me “have you heard of Alice in wonderland syndrome?” and says he’ll refer me to a neuro-ophthalmologist because it’s a brain problem. Yay! Is there anything I can do to stop the episodes? No? Brilliant!

Get one last set of eye pictures done for them to send with the referral, once again absolutely shitting myself at this point because the young man doing it is the size of the BFG to me and I’m expecting to owe money I don’t have at all. He says I can go, I ask how much it is, and double he checks his paper and says it’s free. I leave and thank the NHS gods but can’t see because the remaining eye drops I didn’t cry out decided to seek revenge.

Get home safe, light over my bed blurry but looking fucking massive. I now feel safe to leave the house and talk to people. Only downside is I work in radiology admin so if the brain eye doc wants an mri my coworkers will see why. I am easy to Google so they’ll know it’s me. My dignity should be safe though because my coworkers are nice

Was it worth my time? Financially no, but morally... probably also no... but that rush from overcoming the Goliathan hurdles businesses put in place to inconvenience customers in the hopes they back down... thats my crack.

Sweet chilli sensations too. Lottery win would be lesser!

Hi everyone,

This is a follow on post from the one I made on Sunday about my fantasy/comedy novel:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BritishSuccess/s/PonDmPc4qW

Tl;dr - thank you so much for supporting me - the last few days have been really memorable and beyond anything id expected. I will make sure to post a part 3 when results come out.

Long version:

I just wanted to follow up to say an absolutely HUGE thank you for the response on that post. Since I put it up, Going Fourth has:

- made its way up to #40 on the Kindle Comedy bestsellers list (outselling books by Rik Mayall, Alan Carr and Romesh Ranganathan)

- sold its first ever copy in... Australia (?)

AND gained a fantastic 5 star review (one of you?)

" a smidge of Tom Holt and a soupcon of Pratchett with a hefty belt upside the head of Monty Python sensibilities"

Honestly, thank you so much for those that took the time to read and celebrate with me, and thank you to everyone who took a risk and bought a copy (also, to the one reddit user who found the books i had on Vinted). This community made the last few days so memorable for me (I think the copies sold in the last few days match those id sold in the last year combined).

For anyone who liked the book, please leave a review - apparently Amazon gives visibility a boost once you pass 50. Also, tell a friend, talk about it in other places - the best book recommendations are given by friends. For anyone who didn't like it, please pretend you did?

And for anyone that would like to support and likes fantasy as a genre, please support a different British author (at least judging by his scouse accent) who also made the final, Michael Maguire (compared to Joe Abercrombie & John Gwynne):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Company-Forgotten-Saga-Book-ebook/dp/B0DXBBV5XB

Back in 2017, I was driving around Stoke-on-Trent and as I approached a roundabout, the person in front of me slammed on their brakes for no reason. I reacted immediately and braked, but it was raining so I didn't quite stop and my bumper nudged the back of their car. I say nudged because there was zero damage to my car, and the slightest mark to the paint of their tow bar.

Inevitably, both the driver and the passenger get out of the car rubbing their necks and demanding my insurance details. While the driver was taking my details, the female passenger was waving her phone around taking photos and looking for damage on the car, rubbing their rear bumper, checking for cracks, etc.

When I got home, I reported the incident to my insurance company and told them something didn't seem right about the incident. They'd already received notification of the incident and told me that the driver and his three passengers were attending hospital for their injuries. I told the call handler that there were only two people in the vehicle at the time, and I emailed a copy of my dash cam footage as proof. Apart from completing a statement to give my side of what happened, I never heard anything else about it other than losing my no claims discount.

When I went to renew my insurance 10 months later, my premium had gone up, and the claim was still showing as pending - or in progress - on my car insurance account but showed as a £0 claim. In 2019, I changed to another insurance company and forgot all about it, and for another 3 years I reported it as an at-fault claim.

Then, last week, I received an email from the insurance company stating that they'd identified and error relating to my motor insurance policy following a claim, etc etc.

I gave them a call and they told me that there was a claim made against my policy in 2017, but it was eventually rejected, and as a result, I'd been over-charged my premium by £279-odd, and that they needed to update my address so they could send me a cheque.

I had a brief chat with the call handler and they said the notes on the account from 2017 show that the dash cam footage I provided allowed them to reject the claim from the driver and three passengers for injuries and £1,800 of repairs to their car, and that the other driver's claim had been referred to the fraud team for investigation, but she couldn't share the details of the investigation with me.

Today, I received a cheque for £446 and some pennies; the original £279.29 in premiums that I'd overpaid due to this fraudulent claim, plus 8% interest for the past 9 years.

We haven't had any proper rain where I live for over 2 months. It was glorious.

That is all. Carry on

Finally remembered to post it all to various online selling sites, and it's all gone in 24 hours!

I'd always donated the primary school stuff to the local school sale, but at secondary, they don't have them and also, it's all more expensive at that age so it's nice to get a bit back.

Especially the two multipacks of trousers he grew out of as soon as he sensed they were in the house.

Anyway, if you're like me and keep shoving it away for selling 'at some point', now is that time 😁

I'm so chuffed.

Was dreading going to urgent care after hearing so many horror stories about waiting times and took cash and cards in case we were there so long we needed to get food but whole process was super efficient.

I have wanted it for a long time but been so nervous about it. Eventually got it done over a week ago and went through a pretty rough week where I really questioned taking it out, but after downsizing yesterday it suddenly feels so much more comfortable. Feeling very content with myself today, and a lot more comfortable too.

Hopefully where you are too

2 years ago I published a quirky fantasy/comedy novel about a character who starts hearing the voice of the author in their head. Back in January I submitted it for a book contest called IBOR and, when I didn't hear anything back, assumed I'd missed the submission deadline.

Cut to last week and I find out i made the final round, beating out about 70 other books, thanks to another finalists instagram post!

Results aren't announced until next month. Hasn't stopped me checking for new reviews every 5 minutes XD

EDIT: Thank you so much for the positive response! Its only increased how much im checking for reviews As a few people have asked, the book is called Going Fourth and you can find the full blurb here if you're interested:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1738512908/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8

I almost want to go running outside to sing and dance in it. What a beautiful sound & smell to wake up to. I thought I was dreaming.

As a former histories student found it really hard to design a survey for my masters in marketing. I finally finished designing my survey. All that left is collecting 150 responses! Would appreciate anyone completing it.

https://www.qualtrics.manchester.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV\_2nMWsObMoHVnFiK

Got an Uber to work this morning due to delays in public transport.

I work part-time at a restaurant whilst building up my own business.

He asked me if I was heading to work, I said yes, then we got to talking about aspirations, and I said I was building up my own business and my plans for it in the future.

He then said

" You will go far, definitely I can tell. A lot of young people don't have aspirations nowadays ( I'm 18), but you will definitely be successful, definitely"

Recently, I had an unhappy client a few days ago that made me feel sad, but this made me....motivated almost.

It made me smile and put me in a good mood :)