Thanks guys for all that useful information, all of which is read and understood.
The only outstanding question from me is to ask whether Talla Radar's point about NATS bashers was directed at me? I am absolutely not a NATS basher and am a great fan of both Scottish and London, having experienced truly crap ATC elsewhere in the world I am fully aware how good ours is.
Admittedly Lock'n'load got under my skin by telling me to f**k off to someone else's airspace, but equally I am aware that he is no longer a NATS employee...maybe the culture didn't suit him
But if you are going to describe any honest question about a lack of understanding of procedures as "NATS bashing" then isn't the purpose of this forum rather diminished?
Let me ask my questions in the way that they occur to me, rather than finding some form of word-mincing that will be even more misunderstood.
Sorry PH-UKU (no relation to Lock'n'load?), I missed your question. I arrived EGPG at 11.00 on 1 Nov, so I guess first I spoke to ScATCC at about 10.40. I departed PG for Biggin at about 13.00 on 3/11 spoke first to Edinburgh, so I guess first spoke to you at about 13.10.