Well it seems that they did set up an account and a Direct Debit Instruction (now cancelled) and collected one month’s line rental! The bloody cheek!

Now while talking to them I have been told “We do not care about our customers after 8pm” although their phone lines are open until 10pm. I was transferred three times (without being told why) before the last lady hung up on me (probably justifiably).

Apparently their is a “Wholesale Department” (I don’t care) who are the only ones who can cancel my “order” (I didn’t make one). There was a whole series of other pieces of information I couldn’t (as a customer) care less about… The customer just wants a reasonable request dealt with. If an agent is unable to deal with that aspect of the business and the department that can is closed, then provide the poor people on the phones with a way of putting a message through to the now-closed department. Does that sound like rocket science?

Anyway, I phoned back and ‘Vikram’ said he needed to transfer me to the ‘higher department’ (Why?). He insisted and then transferred me to a line where a machine voice said “I’m sorry. The department you have called is now closed. Sorry for any inconvenience.” And promptly hung up on me.

Update

Would you believe it, I tried again (hey, it’s a freephone number, and I quite enjoy testing a company’s rubbish service) and the lady who answered (whose name is unpronouncable sadly) was very helpful and apologised profusely. Why didn’t answerers 1 – 4 manage that?

I like that quote. I wish I lived by that principle. Even now, with a moment to myself, I feel obliged to post something to my neglected and, now, less and less visited website!

I think the advert may be right — I watched Shrek the Third (which was great) and tonight Die Hard 4.0 (the perfect action film). This summer also has Rush Hour 3, Harry Potter, Transformers, The Simpsons and Evan Almighty to name a few.

The most classic trailer of all time is The Simpsons one though. Marge: “Why are there trotter prints all over the ceiling?”. I was still laughing in the car on the way home! Actually, I chuckled a couple of times when writing this too.

Note: I’m not telling you what the answer to that is.
Update 11:09am 08/07/2007: Found the answer here though somehow it’s not so funny when you haven’t seen the rest of the trailer so resist the urge.

What one person sees as a nerve-racking, horrible experience, others see as an opportunity or an adventure. Recently I have done a lot of things that scare me — actually cause me to lose sleep, worry a little (which is a new experience for me) and experience what I think some people call ‘stress’.

But I am loving it. While it is, on the face of it, unpleasant, nothing really seriously good happens to you unless you take a chance.

If government tries to make people happier, if it starts to prioritise that above wealth creation, will they actually focus on happiness? Will they not instead accidentally concentrate on risk mitigation, harm avoidance and generally making life more dull.

People don’t want dull lives, they want eventful but safe lives that do not have too much sadness. Can government deliver that? Is it in their power?

No.

So what with my new job, new home and hopefully other good news shortly, there’s more on my mind than politics and none of it interesting enough to share with you. So I’ll return (probably tomorrow knowing me) but this message is just a warning that I may not be around much.

See the National Trust’s page about it.

Obviously (I do it a lot) I forgot my camera so I’m afraid I won’t be adding any lovely pictures to FlickR…

Grrrr, Steam.

So I’m gonna watch some West Wing instead. Just thought I’d whinge.

You can read it on James’ Nourishing Obscurity blog, although whether I should have linked to it depends on your viewpoint (see the bit about Oliver Kamm).

I’d add that the internet (and society generally) is changing so fast that ‘normal’ people have no hope of keeping up. So if you already knew about Webcameron or knew that Google had paid £900 million to provide the search function on MySpace then you can consider yourself not-normal.

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On Webcameron, I wanted to make this a separate post but it seems pointless now that I’ve mentioned it. I just wanted to observe that, while it may make some people physically sick and while it does seem a little too pink, the whole idea of allowing slightly less polished presentations to be made (no matter whether they’re staged or not) is an interesting path for politicians to take.

I’m going to avoid the obvious reality TV references but I think this really will make people start to question whether politicians are different because they’re different, or whether being a politician makes all observations of you appear as though through a prism. If Cameron can come out of this looking like a normal person who has to do that politician bit, then its been a success.

So when Alan Drew tells us on his blog that Mr Clarkson has written a piece on Mr Hamster’s crash and recovery, you’ll know its entertaining.

And in the same way as his appearance makes me watch the BBC, Mr Clarkson’s piece has prompted my first reading of The Sun in quite a long, snobby time.