I've just tried to renew my membership to the Microsoft Parnter Program, but been halted by an overly-restrictive website. The renewal process has a section asking for your VAT number, indicating that certain EU countries are exempt from VAT on this. My VAT was issued in Scotland (my company is Scottish registered, as I was living in Edinburgh when I set it up); the website however, says that the VAT Number entered is "not a valid VAT Number for my billing country", which is true. But why must my VAT Number be English to be billed to an English address? Unless Scotland has completely split away from England (I suspect many Scots would like it to, but that's an entirely different matter) then we still have the same monetary system.
The lesson here is not to assume countries are distinct; the UK needs to be treated as a single entity sometimes.