Back smiling again

After BT's attempts to ruin my Christmas I am back smiling. The cause of the change in mood is down to a tweet of a text conversation as follows,

"I am here for you."

"Thanks that means a lot. I have been going through a tough time lately."

"Sorry, who is this?"

"Your Uber driver."

BT ruining my Christmas

One thing I hate about being over 50 is that big organisations seem to start picking on you and then treat you like an idiot when you complain. Regulars will be acquainted with previous bete noirs - Vodafone, Talk Talk, and so on. This time it is the turn of BT.

About 6 weeks ago I changed my TV/Broadband/Phone from Talk Talk to BT. Since then the TV has not worked...at all. Here is the saga so far,

1. I tried the online help instructions on their website...it cut off my broadband
2. I went on to the online chat...three agents cut me off after coming up with the same checks as the online help page (all of which assumes that any fault must be with the broadband even though the TV signal comes through the aerial and NOT the broadband
3. I emailed the CEO...he doesn't know anything about broadband or aerials
4. I eventually had a conversation with Dan (not the CEO)...who thought the problem was the broadband
5. When I asked Dan if I was correct in thinking the signal for the TV came through the aerial and not the broadband he agreed...and promised to send an engineer!!

Yippee I thought, action, success...

The engineer has just left telling me that "The problem is to do with the aerial and he cannot help because....he is a broadband engineer!"

AAAAARGH!!!! 

Brain challenges

I was speaking with a female colleague last week. In the conversation she mentioned that her brother had a health scare and had strongly urged her to be seen by a doctor for possible signs of problems with the brain.

She did. And after exhaustive tests she said she was told ..."There was nothing there"!

It took several minutes before she fathomed why I was lying on the floor laughing.

Rude Awakening

Last week I decided to impose myself on Son- and Daughter-Blog and make use of a bed in their flat in Edinburgh.

I bought Son-blog a pint in his local hostelry by way of a "thank you" for him giving his bed up and sleeping on the floor.

He returned the favour by setting his alarm for 5.00 a.m. with a five minute auto-snooze. Not satisfied with the rude awakening, he had managed to use his new IPhone 8 which, it seems is so high tech, he couldn't work out how to switch the snooze off! 15 snoozes later...

Following the signs

A little over a week ago the Blogs were on their way to Sussex and due to be met by Sussex-George-Nephew-Blog at Gatwick Airport.

There are of course two terminals at Gatwick, North and South. To be certain of avoiding any confusion we had emailed to say we would be landing at the North Terminal. After landing we rang S-G-N-B and said,

"North Terminal"

After what seemed like a couple of weeks waiting we rang again.

"I'm here in the car park" he claimed.

"There are two - which one?"

"The one with the blue pillars."

We looked around and saw pillars in the distance that looked blue. Then they went purple. It seems they were lit by LEDs.

Eventually after much conversation. S-G-N-B fessed up, he was at the South Terminal.

What makes it worse? We actually landed at South Terminal.

Teeth

Son-blog has been suffering from dry, chapped and rough teeth.

I know this because...

he's been brushing them with E45 Cream!

Blog Update

You may have been wondering what has been happening in Blog-world lately. If so read on...

1. Son-blog has been guilty of false-imprisonment
2. Mr Blog has been aging badly
3. A new addition has been made to the wider Blog-clan
4. Microsoft have taken away my paint program and given me Paint 3D

Son-blog managed to be so unaware of the house-guest in his flat, (which he shares with sister-blog), that he locked Beth-blog (friend of sister-blog) inside it. Beth-blog missed her train home to Wales and will probably never come back.

Earlier in the week I was in the gym. Plagued as I am by muscle knots, I take a tennis ball with me which I lie on to release the knots. A gentleman in his early eighties was watching me. Eventually he stopped his 350 kg dead-lifts and wandered over.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

I know he was concerned but being asked by a man of advancing years if you are alright that makes you feel thirty years older than you are.

The Sussex-blogs have taken delivery of a new blog...little Oscar currently 5lbs. On checking with Google I discovered that Oscar-blog weighs exactly the same as,

• A Chihuahua
• A Small bag  
• A Table lamp
• A Cooking pot
• And I kid you not...5lbs of sugar or flour

As for Paint 3D, let me know what you think!

Just did something really good...!

Lunch was a pretty dull round of bread and cheese just now. Looked for the cookies and jaffa cakes and realised that the chicken and I ate the last ones yesterday.  Rooting around in a cupboard in found chocolate cornflake cakes which were damn close to their sell-by date of 226 July so I took one for the team and started to eat them. :-)

Customer service training need...

Yesterday, being a largely un-kept bank holiday Monday here in Scotland, found me on the phone to APC, a courier company, trying to arrange for the delivery of a package. (APC said they had tried to deliver it on Friday - if they did they must have gone to the wrong address).

The conversation I had with them went like this...

Me "Hi I'd like to arrange the redelivery of a package."

Spanish sounding man "Hood morning, aff you got dee consignment number?"

I read out what I supposed to be the correct number which was on the email they sent in the subjct line.

"No, no. Dat's not eet. Is a seven digit number."

I looked in an earlier email and found one.

"Five zeros five two."

Spanish sounding man, "No, is must be seven digits."

Me (losing the plot and regaining it), "That was seven....never mind. How about 0,0,0,0,0,5,2."

"Ah yes, dats eet. When would you like delivery?"

"This afternoon between 4 and 6 please."

Spanish chap, "I weel ask the manager."

"Thanks"

Piped music and three minutes later,

"We can't deliver it then."

"Why?"

"We're closed."

Sat Nav 2

Hot on the heels of Bossy Miss Google Maps in the last post....

I thought I had cracked how to use the Sat Nav function on my tablet. I was wrong.

Last Sunday I had to get to Anstruther, a small fishing town, for a sea-kayaking trip. Having never been there I thought I would use the tablet to help. The bossy voice began pretty well, telling me when and where to turn.

With fifteen minutes to go before I expected to be in Anstruther she told me to turn right into Kirk Brae and that I had arrived at my destination. I hadn't. I was in a small village called Ceres 15 miles from the sea.

I checked and found that the bossy voice had added an "interim destination"! Having carefully checked I tried again to get to Anstruther. This is what followed...

• I was taken to St Andrews (the wrong direction)
• I was told to turn left on to a road which was called Lamont Drive but was actually called Bridge Street
• It told me to turn right three times on to roads that were clearly in totally the wrong direction (by now I could see the sea)
• It told me that Anstruther, my destination, was a caravan park two miles south of St Andrews
• I argued with the voice
• The voice didn't listen
• I lost my temper with the voice
• I swore repeatedly at the voice which it ignored
• I made it to Anstruther 

Sat Nav 1

 A couple of weeks ago Mrs Blog and I were trying to get to Dalkeith. Knowing the name of  the street I needed to get to but not knowing the town that well I asked Mrs Blog to open up my tablet and check Google Maps. (A reasonable request in my view).

Mrs Blog decided to experiment with different colours, views and scales of the maps without actually intending to. After some unheated and blame-free exchanges between us, Mrs Blog finally got the map up and typed in the destination.

"I'll get the voice thing up as well," she said.

The voice thing turns Google Maps into a superior but tinny sounding woman who bosses you about when you drive.

"At the next roundabout take the last exit and go back the way you have come," she said.

Being in sight of a sign that said "Dalkeith" straight ahead I decided to challenge Mrs Blog on which destination she had typed in. After another calm exchange we decided that sense of smell was probably better than Google Maps.

We managed to find the place we were going to with little bother ten minutes later. Parked up, I checked Google Maps and found that Mrs Blog had tried to take us to Larkhall - a mere three hour drive in the wrong direction.

EE and Orange .....Aaaargh!!!!

I noticed that Orange (Now part of EE) have been billing me some high costs for Mrs Blog's phone. I tried to access my online account to find out why. Since I last logged on they have changed the system and now need me to enter my account number. They helpfully tell me on the site that this is located on my last bill. Since I went paperless three years ago that is not much use. I waited for the chat help box and duly asked for my account number.

I was given a 9 digit number to go in to an 8 digit space. The chat guy cheerfully confirmed it was the correct number.

I tried later with another chat operative. I got the correct 8 digit number and accessed my account. It had all the statements up until Jan 2016 and nothing beyond.

In desperation I phoned the dedicated EE Orange helpline. The auto-voice-menu asked me twice for my phone number and after the usual (your is important) delays spoke to a young lad. He told my bill was £24 less than I knew it to be so I queried if there were any other Orange accounts in my name. He checked and said "no"! I didn't believe him (I am a cynic after too many years with Vodafone). I demanded he check again and he confirmed again there were none.

"I want to make a formal complaint. You are taking more money out of my account than you believe you should be."

"Hang on I need to check with someone."

"With whom and why?!"

"I need to talk to someone who has access to a system that I don't have."

"What is that system?"

"The Orange system."

"Eh? ??You're telling me that you don't have access to the Orange system, so which system have you been checking?"

"The EE one it's the only one I have."

I'm going to Sainsburys to buy alcohol.....!!!

Major breaking world news

Given all the headlines about world leaders today it is reassuring to see that the London Times has kept a sense of proportion. It carried the following headline today,

"Breaking news about flatulent animals..."

The key facts on the subject are,

1. Tapirs are very noisy
2. Orangutans do so without shame
3. Snow leopards muffle the sound with their floofy (sic) bottoms
4. The copperhead snake squeaks and you are likely to miss it until the smell gets to you
5. Hedgehogs' smell worse when they have eaten cat food

...just in case you missed it! :-)