July 2005 Archives

After 8 long days in the hospital, my wife Azure and our newborn daughter have finally come home. Despite some shaky moments, they are both fine and healthy and beautiful, and I am the happiest dad on the planet.

A few incoming MBA students have asked for advice on moving to the UK. About year ago, I asked the very same question to Frank Leahy, who then wrote a helpful blog entry (two, actually) about Moving to England — What Do I Bring and Getting Stuff There.

Herewith a few more details that I can add — these being oddball points, mostly tailored to Cambridge MBA students:

Cell phones: For starters, they call ‘em “mobile phones” here, and yeah, you’ll need one if you hope to socialize much.

You need a GSM phone, however — if you’re a T-Mobile or Cingular customer in the States, you’re probably in luck. However, your phone is still likely to be ‘locked’ to that provider; you still need to unlock it to join another carrier. There’s an easy way to test this — if you’re a T-Mobile customer in the States, stroll into a Cingular phone store (or vice-versa), then ask whether their pre-paid-minutes plans will work on your current phone. Store reps should be able to swap out your SIM card and try one of theirs. If it works, your existing phone is already unlocked and ready for the UK.

Unlocking phones is a tricksy business. It’s not-really-allowed, but if you live in a big city, there’s probably some local shop that’ll do it for fifteen bucks. Try asking around at 3rd-party places (the storefronts advertising calling plans from multiple carriers) especially if they serve a lot of overseas-immigrant customers. A couple years ago, I owned a Sony T68i that I’d used while in Italy; I needed it unlocked so I could join Cingular pre-paid in California. The first shop I walked into (outside Monterey Park) was happy to unlock the phone — as a cash-only transaction.

You might also try your luck and wait until you arrive in Cambridge. There’s a stall in the market square advertising phone unlocks while-u-wait.

Of course, the whole point of bringing an unlocked phone to England is to join a ‘pay-as-you-go’ phone plan, and thereby avoid spending a single pence on new equipment. You can live quite cheaply on pay-as-you-go — you’re charged only for the calls you dial, not the ones you receive. And there’s never any end-of-the-month billing surprises. Azure and I probably averaged under 10 pounds a month with our pay-as-you-go mobiles, but we didn’t gab much.

I recently became a pay-monthly customer, though, since I wanted a brand-new camera phone. As in the U.S., you’ll get a very nice ‘free’ phone here if you sign up for a 12-month plan, usually £30 and up. Nice thing is, pay-monthly phones are generally provided unlocked (but be sure to ask) so you can use them after graduation, wherever you may live. One prerequisite may be having a UK bank account set up, however.

Sticklers for detail will note that I’ve missed two other options. First, you can buy cheap locked phones (£29-£99) tied to a provider’s pay-as-you-go plan; if you choose a cruder phone, and don’t talk much, you’ll still recoup the savings (vs. a monthly contract) before the year is up. Avoid the ‘3’ network if you head this route, though — any minutes you buy will expire every month. Dumb.

The other option is to buy an unlocked tri-band or quad-band GSM phone, new or used, back in the US. (There’s little point to buying a phone over here; the prices generally match the cost of buying a 12-month contract with the phone included.) Some phone makers, like Handspring, sell unlocked phones directly to customers. Some stores may, too.

Unlocked phones are also for sale on eBay, though there’s also a lot of fraud in that space — be especially wary of overseas sellers with low feedback numbers. Sellers whose only picture of their phone is lifted from the Nokia website are also a bad sign…

Business Suit: Maybe most MBA’s own one of these, already; I was lucky enough not to. You’ll need a suit for client-based group projects, formal halls, the class picture, etc. I brought an inexpensive no-name grey suit from a discounter, which was a good call. That suit spent a lot of time getting wet in the rain, picking up road dirt from cycling, and getting spilled on at formal halls and college bars. Save the nice suit for after graduation.

Tuxedos: These are called ‘dinner suits’, hereabouts. Absurd, I know, but getting educated in Cambridge means you’re likely to need/want one. There’s a black-tie Christmas party at the Judge, and the more traditional colleges like Magdalene throw a number of black-tie-preferred events (holiday banquets, etc.) as well. (Demanding people to wear a tux is, like, no big deal here.) Toss in a May Ball or two, and you’ll belatedly realize that buying is better than renting at £35-£50 a pop. Like most everything else, buying a tux at home is much cheaper than buying in the UK.

Vaccinations: You’ll soon get a note from Cambridge telling you to get a mumps vaccination. The disease may sound as medieval as most of the buildings around here (and is unheard of in the US), but it’s a virus that’s very much alive and kicking in English universities.You don’t want to get this one, especially if you’re male.

You’ll need to register with the NHS on arrival, and can sort out with them how to get your ‘jabs’, but it’s probably a lot less of a hassle to get this done Stateside.

Bicycle and accessories: This is a cycling town. Thanks to the barricades and ‘short-cuts’ placed throughout the whole of Cambridge, two wheels are generally faster than four, and bikes are how everybody gets around, rain or shine. A cheap used bike costs £40 or less, but add-ons like decent halogen lights, helmets, etc. easily add up to that same amount. If you already have this stuff at home, toss it in your suitcase.

Council Tax, etc: The fine print on your rental contact (should you choose to live in private accomodation instead of college housing) is likely to mention Council Tax. This will come in at about 10% of your yearly rent — a nasty surprise, if you weren’t expecting it. Good thing is, you can probably avoid this charge altogether if your entry clearance visa says ‘no recourse to public funds’. You won’t be able to go on the dole, but your tax burden is made much easier.

If there’s a TV in your house, though, you’ll also be liable for a yearly TV license, which runs about £100 / $200. Again, this is unlikely to be included in your rent, so remember to ask — I hear they are remarkably efficient about following up with non-payers.

And that’s it. Well, except for an umbrella and rain jacket. Which are… useful.