Lesson Learnt!

London's cost of living never ceases to amaze me! From the exhorbitant school fees, to the ridiculous taxi fares to even simple everyday necessities like food, you just need to be here to experience it. Got this from some website and not surprisingly, London is no. 2 on the list of the World's Most Expensive Cities, with Singapore ranked not-so-surprisingly high at no. 14.


Anyway, today I just experienced another dosage of "you-have-to-see-to-believe-how-expensive-London-is" experience, and it came from the school's library. Last Friday, I borrowed a Set Text which was due in a day (which is Saturday). However, since I have no lessons on weekends, I thought it won't do me much harm to return the book on Monday instead. Anyway, how big can the fine be? Boy was I in for a shock! For all you people who is guessing a few pounds, be a bit more ambitious. Well, It costs me a cool 11 pounds for returning the book 2 days late! After recovering from the shock of being slapped with a 11 pound fine, I went to look up the library website hoping to get an explanation into how did this ridiculous amount came about.

Bascially in the library, there are 3 categories of books available in the Course Collection

1) One week loans for red labels or red strips - A fine of 30p per day is charged on overdue one week loans. (sounds reasonable)

2) Three day loans f0r blue labels or blue strips - A fine of 50p per day is charged on overdue three day loans. (sounds reasonable)

3) Set texts aka orange labels or orange strips - A fine of 50p per hour is charged on overdue Set Texts.

There was even a warning! "These are textbooks which are in high demand.Up to three set texts may be borrowed at one timeSet texts must be returned within 24 hours of the time of issue.Items cannot be renewed of reissued.Holds cannot be placed on set texts."

Woah! 50p per hour!!! Hmmm, so if my fine is 11 pounds, this means my book was overdue by 22 hours!!!!! Apparantly, LSE students borrow 4 times more library books than the national average and this explains why some texts are in such high demand that they have to charge 50p an hour to discourage book-hoggers!

I know I'm just bitching here and I should have known better and checked in the first place. But anyway for all you Singaporeans complaining about inflation and high cost of living, perhaps you can drop by London to make yourself feel better!