After a full week in the house, we began to be concerned that we weren't getting much mail. We had signed up for the mail redirection service the week before we moved and knew that it took five working days to get started, but we were expecting to receive redirected mail from the middle of the first week, at the latest. We'd had nothing.
I called the number on the form and spoke to a very nice lady who had no record of our redirection at all. They didn't know we existed. All our mail was still being delivered to the old place (except for the few things we'd managed to update our address for already). I blustered that we'd paid over sixty quid for a service we weren't getting. And the redress? I'd have to fill in a new mail redirection form, send it direct to the mail redirection service centre and - get this - attach a photocopy of my receipt to prove that I'd already paid.
With all the whizz-bang electronics and computers in use in the Post Office, with the receipt I had containing not one but three separate transaction identifiers, as well as the date and post office code, the best they could do to find my payment was for me to photocopy the paper.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
The Kitchen Man
Unlike our previous home, which was a new build, the "new" place is almost 100 years old and consequently in need of some refurbishment especially in the bathroom and kitchen. Before we moved in, we'd assumed the kitchen would be the first priority. It's long and relatively narrow and has hardly any counter space apart from a couple of feet beside the sink. It has a very old decrepit boiler, a butcher's block table we bought with the house and pretty much nothing else, apart from two cavernous Edwardian cupboards that stretch up on each side of the chimney breast - just like the ones my Grandma had in the back room of her Victorian terrace.
We had several ideas about what to do with the space, and had arranged for a local firm to visit to do the detailed design and give us a quote. With appalling planning the kitchen man was due to call on the afternoon of our last day at the Great Orme, which accounts for us having to curtail our walk around Bodnant Gardens.
Even so, we were very excited by the design he drew up. He listened carefully to all our ideas, supplemented them with some of his own and came up with a fabulous plan that turned the kitchen into a modern living space with plenty of room and some wow factor. But oh dear! As soon as the design phase of his visit was complete, someone flicked a switch in his head and he turned into Salesman of the Century. Worse. Double glazing salesman of the century.
Now I have some very longstanding experience of the worst kind of double glazing salesmen. As early as 1979 I sat in my own lounge being regaled by a spotty herbert on the benefits of thermal break and the fact that a particular deal was only available if I signed up right then and there. I didn't get rid of that guy until well after midnight and I had thought such practices had been outlawed long since. The Kitchen Man proved me wrong. He had all the old tricks, and I do mean old.
Rule 1: Build up your product so that it looks great compared with the competition and yet justifies its high price. So he explained to me why B&Q, Ikea and Magnet & Southern kitchens are all rubbish, because they're made out of "Weetabix" (by which I understood him to mean regular chipboard) - and Magnets will even charge premium prices for their Weetabix! Then he explained why Johnson's kitchens are so much more expensive than B&Q etc, because they use triple-ply Weetabix. His sales pitch was obviously geared towards a complete moron and he didn't have the sense to tailor it for his current audience. Honestly, I would have understood the term "MDF" but it never once passed his lips.
So while I might expect to pay between £5- and £10,000 for a kitchen (to his design) from Ikea, and up to £50,000 for such a kitchen from Johnson's HIS firm could do it for the knock-down price of £19,000!! What an incredible deal. I almost bit his arm off. Almost. Luckily, (a) I had seen this sales technique before and (b) I didn't have anywhere near £19 grand to spend, so it was no hardship to me to simply stare dumbfounded at him as if he'd landed from Mars and wait for the next stage of the sales process to kick in. I did wonder later what would have happened if my kitchen budget had been £20,000. I might have thought £19,000 was a good deal and signed up right away! But wait...here comes that all-important second sales kicker.
Rule 2: The time-limited deal. Turns out they have this massively expensive kitchen-making machine and in order to cover its costs they have to keep it running 24x7. Now it just so happens that they've had a cancellation which would mean this poor machine lying idle - costing them money! So if I can have the kitchen fitted within the next three weeks, they could bring the machine back up to full capacity and pass the consequent savings on to me in the form of a free installation, saving £2,000.
Does anyone fall for this crap? I deployed my dissembling tactic (which, in case you were wondering, is completely legitimate) - that we were not going to sign up for anything until we'd had quotes for both the kitchen and bathroom, to see if we could afford to have both done or only one. So he asked me what our budget was and I gave him a ball-park figure of 10 grand. We started working through some options how we could reduce the cost of his design - taking out the more expensive cupboard designs (corner units with interior racks, etc) and the built-in fridge/freezer. With the free installation we managed to get it down to £11,000. Amazing that - a saving of £8,000 in a matter of a few minutes. I still wasn't biting, so he deployed the final Double Glazing Salesman closing tactic.
Rule 3: The manager's phone call. "You've said you have £10,000 to spend. If I phone my manager now and get him to agree to do this work for £10,000 will you sign up today?"
How can you trust a price like that? Give me the price, dammit! The real price. Stick to it. Do a straight deal. If you can do it for £10,000 you might have been able to do it for £9,000 or £7,500 or £5,000. How can I tell I'm getting a good deal? I pointed out again that I wasn't signing anything until we'd had the bathroom quote. He left, taking his design with him.
Interestingly, we subsequently realised we had been planning to demolish the chimney breast (at a cost of £2,000) only to rebuild it six inches to the right to house the range, at an approximate cost of another £2,000. We decided we'd leave the chimney breast where it is and build the kitchen round it.
We had several ideas about what to do with the space, and had arranged for a local firm to visit to do the detailed design and give us a quote. With appalling planning the kitchen man was due to call on the afternoon of our last day at the Great Orme, which accounts for us having to curtail our walk around Bodnant Gardens.
Even so, we were very excited by the design he drew up. He listened carefully to all our ideas, supplemented them with some of his own and came up with a fabulous plan that turned the kitchen into a modern living space with plenty of room and some wow factor. But oh dear! As soon as the design phase of his visit was complete, someone flicked a switch in his head and he turned into Salesman of the Century. Worse. Double glazing salesman of the century.
Now I have some very longstanding experience of the worst kind of double glazing salesmen. As early as 1979 I sat in my own lounge being regaled by a spotty herbert on the benefits of thermal break and the fact that a particular deal was only available if I signed up right then and there. I didn't get rid of that guy until well after midnight and I had thought such practices had been outlawed long since. The Kitchen Man proved me wrong. He had all the old tricks, and I do mean old.
Rule 1: Build up your product so that it looks great compared with the competition and yet justifies its high price. So he explained to me why B&Q, Ikea and Magnet & Southern kitchens are all rubbish, because they're made out of "Weetabix" (by which I understood him to mean regular chipboard) - and Magnets will even charge premium prices for their Weetabix! Then he explained why Johnson's kitchens are so much more expensive than B&Q etc, because they use triple-ply Weetabix. His sales pitch was obviously geared towards a complete moron and he didn't have the sense to tailor it for his current audience. Honestly, I would have understood the term "MDF" but it never once passed his lips.
So while I might expect to pay between £5- and £10,000 for a kitchen (to his design) from Ikea, and up to £50,000 for such a kitchen from Johnson's HIS firm could do it for the knock-down price of £19,000!! What an incredible deal. I almost bit his arm off. Almost. Luckily, (a) I had seen this sales technique before and (b) I didn't have anywhere near £19 grand to spend, so it was no hardship to me to simply stare dumbfounded at him as if he'd landed from Mars and wait for the next stage of the sales process to kick in. I did wonder later what would have happened if my kitchen budget had been £20,000. I might have thought £19,000 was a good deal and signed up right away! But wait...here comes that all-important second sales kicker.
Rule 2: The time-limited deal. Turns out they have this massively expensive kitchen-making machine and in order to cover its costs they have to keep it running 24x7. Now it just so happens that they've had a cancellation which would mean this poor machine lying idle - costing them money! So if I can have the kitchen fitted within the next three weeks, they could bring the machine back up to full capacity and pass the consequent savings on to me in the form of a free installation, saving £2,000.
Does anyone fall for this crap? I deployed my dissembling tactic (which, in case you were wondering, is completely legitimate) - that we were not going to sign up for anything until we'd had quotes for both the kitchen and bathroom, to see if we could afford to have both done or only one. So he asked me what our budget was and I gave him a ball-park figure of 10 grand. We started working through some options how we could reduce the cost of his design - taking out the more expensive cupboard designs (corner units with interior racks, etc) and the built-in fridge/freezer. With the free installation we managed to get it down to £11,000. Amazing that - a saving of £8,000 in a matter of a few minutes. I still wasn't biting, so he deployed the final Double Glazing Salesman closing tactic.
Rule 3: The manager's phone call. "You've said you have £10,000 to spend. If I phone my manager now and get him to agree to do this work for £10,000 will you sign up today?"
How can you trust a price like that? Give me the price, dammit! The real price. Stick to it. Do a straight deal. If you can do it for £10,000 you might have been able to do it for £9,000 or £7,500 or £5,000. How can I tell I'm getting a good deal? I pointed out again that I wasn't signing anything until we'd had the bathroom quote. He left, taking his design with him.
Interestingly, we subsequently realised we had been planning to demolish the chimney breast (at a cost of £2,000) only to rebuild it six inches to the right to house the range, at an approximate cost of another £2,000. We decided we'd leave the chimney breast where it is and build the kitchen round it.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
A Weekend on Great Orme
One of the things causing us to stress out over the moving dates was the fact that we had a long-standing booking to spend a weekend with friends at the Great Orme lighthouse. With teeth-grinding timing we'd managed to complete and move house the weekend before, and during the week leading up to our weekend break I had to work away for three days, so when the Friday (a day off!) finally arrived we were more than ready to get away. Read the full story of the weekend, with pictures, on my travelogue pages.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Strange Mail
Less than a week in our new house and it's already clear something strange is going on with the mail. The previous owners lived here for 11 years and have set up mail redirection, so we're not getting any mail for them, but we are receiving letters addressed to people we've never heard of. People who can't have lived here for at least 11 years. There's been a lot of "return to sender" going on, but eventually something is going to turn up without a return address and I'll have to choose to open it, or bin it.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Finding things
When we left our old home behind, I wrote a ten-page document for the new owners. A room-by-room resumé of how the house worked, what day was bin day, where the gas meter key was: the whole bit. What did we get?
1. This is the alarm code
2. The cat likes tuna (we inherited a cat)
3. Err...that's it.
So for the first day or so things were, shall we say, a little hit and miss. Like it took us two hours to find out how to turn the central heating on (the main power switch was painted the same colour as the wall and hence well camouflaged). I had to read the electricity meter and the search for that would have been even longer had the previous owner not been staying at his friend's house two doors down. It was hidden behind a panel in the downstairs lav.
Over the next couple of days the hot water gradually ran out. It got cooler and cooler until eventually there was no difference between the cold and hot taps. We couldn't understand it: the boiler was on for the "normal" amount of time. I went hunting for the hot water tank. Don't laugh - it wasn't anywhere to be seen. Eventually I found it hiding in the half of the attic space that wasn't floored, behind a panel in the cupboard. It looked like it didn't have any lagging on the top half, so I assumed it was cooling down faster than we could heat it up with the boiler. I switched the boiler on to 24-hour operation. After a day, there was still no hot water. In desperation, I tried the immersion heater. Success!
Later, in conversation with a neighbour, I said we were settling in better now that we'd got some hot water. "Oh," he said, "didn't they tell you it was an immersion heater?" *$"*?#! (I found out some days afterward that it's perfectly normal for the top of the tank not to be lagged, when it's a combination water storage cylinder).
1. This is the alarm code
2. The cat likes tuna (we inherited a cat)
3. Err...that's it.
So for the first day or so things were, shall we say, a little hit and miss. Like it took us two hours to find out how to turn the central heating on (the main power switch was painted the same colour as the wall and hence well camouflaged). I had to read the electricity meter and the search for that would have been even longer had the previous owner not been staying at his friend's house two doors down. It was hidden behind a panel in the downstairs lav.
Over the next couple of days the hot water gradually ran out. It got cooler and cooler until eventually there was no difference between the cold and hot taps. We couldn't understand it: the boiler was on for the "normal" amount of time. I went hunting for the hot water tank. Don't laugh - it wasn't anywhere to be seen. Eventually I found it hiding in the half of the attic space that wasn't floored, behind a panel in the cupboard. It looked like it didn't have any lagging on the top half, so I assumed it was cooling down faster than we could heat it up with the boiler. I switched the boiler on to 24-hour operation. After a day, there was still no hot water. In desperation, I tried the immersion heater. Success!
Later, in conversation with a neighbour, I said we were settling in better now that we'd got some hot water. "Oh," he said, "didn't they tell you it was an immersion heater?" *$"*?#! (I found out some days afterward that it's perfectly normal for the top of the tank not to be lagged, when it's a combination water storage cylinder).
Friday, October 13, 2006
Moving Day
After the week we'd been through, we expected moving day to be hell. In the event, it was a breeze. Our movers, Kevin and Scott from Andrew Porter were top guys and within five hours, the massive truck was loaded and the house was empty. Checking through the house one last time was a little poignant, and I couldn't help thinking back to the last time I'd been alone in the empty house - on the day I got the keys when it was brand new - and how exciting it had been to stand on the brink of property ownership again after all that had gone before. Back then we had moved in with nine car loads of stuff in the back of my old Cavalier. Four years and four months later we'd filled more than two thirds of a forty-foot removals van, and some of the things we were shifting had sat in the attic since the day we moved in. As you can tell, I was in reflective mood.
But with only a brief stop to grab a sandwich and/or chips for lunch, there was no time for reflection. The afternoon was all about direction: telling Kevin and Scott where to put the stuff as it was unloaded from the van. Since unloading didn't involve unpacking, the job was done before 6pm and the intrepid movers, who refused to keep still for a decent photograph, drove off into the twilight.After a full day's work (admittedly not much of it by us) we were left with a
kitchen that looked pretty much like the one we had left behind earlier in the day, except bigger, and a whole lot of unpacking to do, but we were in! Finally, almost five months after we first found the house we had been looking for since January 2005, we were in!! Of course, there's a heap of decorating to do. Of course, we want to refit the kitchen and the bathroom. Yes, we don't yet have a phone, and consequently no Internet (yes, I'm writing this retrospectively). True, we have no carpets, and the boiler needs fixing, but none of that matters. Within hours of our arrival we had been greeted by three separate sets of neighbours and that is worth more than a pristine house and plush carpets. Since I moved out of my parents' house 28 years ago I don't think I've spoken to any neighbours for more than a minute at a time and I've lived in places where I have never met the neighbours at all. By contrast, our new house felt like home the moment we stepped through the door. There is a real community here - the kind I have been unconsciously searching for. Welcome home!
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Moving Week
You regularly hear people say that the three most stressful things in life are death, divorce and moving house. I've never really understood that last one, because all my house moves have been (relatively) stress-free. Until now.
Maybe it's just rosy-coloured hindsight that makes those other moves seem so straightforward, but in this week leading up to the move I've finally come to realise what a crappy process we have in England for house sales/purchases, and exactly how many problems can arise.
The Moving Company
They sounded so good. Their rep/salesman's patter was the best, the most reassuring, their quote was not the cheapest but seemed to be the most realistic. Their approach to damages was fair, equitable and understandable. We chose them, we called them and told them we were hoping for a move on Friday 13th (gulp!) and they said fine, call us back when it's a firm date.
So we called back on Friday 6th.
"We can't fit you in that day."
"!!!What do you mean you can't fit us in. We called. You pencilled us in. You were the best."
"There's no such thing as 'pencilling in'. We only take firm bookings."
There was a short panic. I called the second best company, and they could fit us in. But I wasn't happy. The second company never gave me a warm feeling that they would look after our stuff, or turn up on time.
Forty minutes later the first company called back to say their transport manager had "moved a few things around" and they could fit us in now. I cancelled the second company. This was stress I could do without. Little did I know what was to come.
The Drive
Or rather, the lack of one. The house details mention there being a drive leading to the garage, but legalistically they do stop short of saying the drive actually belongs to the house. Because it doesn't. It doesn't, apparently, belong to anyone. So how can we guarantee that we will always be able to get to the garage? Turns out that it takes 25 years unfettered access to establish a right of way. The previous owners have been in residence 11 years - almost halfway - so we have to get a sworn statement from them to that effect, so that we don't lose the benefit of those 11 years on our way to the 25 year mark. Problem solved.
The Conservatory
Even though the property is freehold, there is still a "Chief Rent" payable. But it's never been collected. However one of the requirements of the chief rent is that permission is sought before making any material changes to the property (like erecting a conservatory). But if you don't know who the Chief Rent owner is, how can you ask for permission? We decided we didn't want to worry about this. If at some time in the future someone turns up demanding we demolish the conservatory, we'll worry about it then.
BasTard telecomms
The capital letters are significant. We'd asked BT to move the phone line several times (each time the move date changed, as it happens). Only trouble is, the last time we tried to change the date, it didn't register with their system, so they still thought we were moving on the 10th, not the 13th. Cue call from the engineer at 10am on the 10th.
"We're coming to install your new line."
"Oh no you're not, we don't move 'til Friday."
"Right, I'll put it back in the system."
Unfortunately, "putting it back in the system" didn't involve avoiding the disconnection of the old line, and at 5.30pm on the Tuesday before moving day, we found ourselves without a phone. Thank God for (a) mobiles and (b) broadband (which for some reason didn't get cut off). And meanwhile, the packing went on...
The deposit
OK so this was mostly my fault, but it finally dawned on me Wednesday morning that we would soon be called upon to pay the deposit, and the money was sitting in our Egg savings account. I'd assured our solicitor that I would do an online transfer, which I mistakenly referred to as a "BACS" transfer (for historical reasons I won't bore you with). She was horrified. "Don't use BACS - it can take up to 5 days. CHAPS is what you want." Which is fine, cos that's what the banks use, right? Wrong. After I'd completed the Egg transfer I read that little message that says, basically, "Egg uses BACS, please allow up to five days..."
Aargh!
The emergency overdraft
So the next day I'm frantically calling my bank trying to set up an emergency overdraft to cover the deposit in advance of the funds arriving from Egg.
I guess they thought they were being really responsive after I'd called at 9am and they got back to me at 1pm, but in those four hours we'd gone through agonies of wondering if the whole transaction would fail, if we'd have to unpack all those boxes again, if our buyers would finally get hacked off with the delays and go elsewhere. And meanwhile, the packing went on...
Half an hour before the bank finally called back, I checked the online accounts again. The transfer from Egg had come through! Praise be! Nothing can go wrong now, surely...?
The transfer limit
Well, actually...it turns out there's a daily limit on the amount of money you can transfer out of your account with online banking. Not a limit you'd normally have to worry about (it's £10,000) but when your bill is over £11,000 it can be a bit of a stopper. Only a minute's panic this time though (we were getting used to living on the edge!), as we put our heads together and came up with a workaround. There's no limit on transfers between accounts, so I paid the ten grand and then transferred the balance to our joint account, whereupon Nikki could pay the remainder herself, since the limit is per person, not per account.
Completion
Normally, solicitors like to complete about a week before moving. We completed at 4.30pm the day before moving. And, incidentally, ten hours before Nikki's folks were due at the airport to fly back to Toronto. Jeez.
Maybe it's just rosy-coloured hindsight that makes those other moves seem so straightforward, but in this week leading up to the move I've finally come to realise what a crappy process we have in England for house sales/purchases, and exactly how many problems can arise.
The Moving Company
They sounded so good. Their rep/salesman's patter was the best, the most reassuring, their quote was not the cheapest but seemed to be the most realistic. Their approach to damages was fair, equitable and understandable. We chose them, we called them and told them we were hoping for a move on Friday 13th (gulp!) and they said fine, call us back when it's a firm date.
So we called back on Friday 6th.
"We can't fit you in that day."
"!!!What do you mean you can't fit us in. We called. You pencilled us in. You were the best."
"There's no such thing as 'pencilling in'. We only take firm bookings."
There was a short panic. I called the second best company, and they could fit us in. But I wasn't happy. The second company never gave me a warm feeling that they would look after our stuff, or turn up on time.
Forty minutes later the first company called back to say their transport manager had "moved a few things around" and they could fit us in now. I cancelled the second company. This was stress I could do without. Little did I know what was to come.
The Drive
Or rather, the lack of one. The house details mention there being a drive leading to the garage, but legalistically they do stop short of saying the drive actually belongs to the house. Because it doesn't. It doesn't, apparently, belong to anyone. So how can we guarantee that we will always be able to get to the garage? Turns out that it takes 25 years unfettered access to establish a right of way. The previous owners have been in residence 11 years - almost halfway - so we have to get a sworn statement from them to that effect, so that we don't lose the benefit of those 11 years on our way to the 25 year mark. Problem solved.
The Conservatory
Even though the property is freehold, there is still a "Chief Rent" payable. But it's never been collected. However one of the requirements of the chief rent is that permission is sought before making any material changes to the property (like erecting a conservatory). But if you don't know who the Chief Rent owner is, how can you ask for permission? We decided we didn't want to worry about this. If at some time in the future someone turns up demanding we demolish the conservatory, we'll worry about it then.
BasTard telecomms
The capital letters are significant. We'd asked BT to move the phone line several times (each time the move date changed, as it happens). Only trouble is, the last time we tried to change the date, it didn't register with their system, so they still thought we were moving on the 10th, not the 13th. Cue call from the engineer at 10am on the 10th.
"We're coming to install your new line."
"Oh no you're not, we don't move 'til Friday."
"Right, I'll put it back in the system."
Unfortunately, "putting it back in the system" didn't involve avoiding the disconnection of the old line, and at 5.30pm on the Tuesday before moving day, we found ourselves without a phone. Thank God for (a) mobiles and (b) broadband (which for some reason didn't get cut off). And meanwhile, the packing went on...The deposit
OK so this was mostly my fault, but it finally dawned on me Wednesday morning that we would soon be called upon to pay the deposit, and the money was sitting in our Egg savings account. I'd assured our solicitor that I would do an online transfer, which I mistakenly referred to as a "BACS" transfer (for historical reasons I won't bore you with). She was horrified. "Don't use BACS - it can take up to 5 days. CHAPS is what you want." Which is fine, cos that's what the banks use, right? Wrong. After I'd completed the Egg transfer I read that little message that says, basically, "Egg uses BACS, please allow up to five days..."
Aargh!
The emergency overdraft
So the next day I'm frantically calling my bank trying to set up an emergency overdraft to cover the deposit in advance of the funds arriving from Egg.
I guess they thought they were being really responsive after I'd called at 9am and they got back to me at 1pm, but in those four hours we'd gone through agonies of wondering if the whole transaction would fail, if we'd have to unpack all those boxes again, if our buyers would finally get hacked off with the delays and go elsewhere. And meanwhile, the packing went on...Half an hour before the bank finally called back, I checked the online accounts again. The transfer from Egg had come through! Praise be! Nothing can go wrong now, surely...?
The transfer limit
Well, actually...it turns out there's a daily limit on the amount of money you can transfer out of your account with online banking. Not a limit you'd normally have to worry about (it's £10,000) but when your bill is over £11,000 it can be a bit of a stopper. Only a minute's panic this time though (we were getting used to living on the edge!), as we put our heads together and came up with a workaround. There's no limit on transfers between accounts, so I paid the ten grand and then transferred the balance to our joint account, whereupon Nikki could pay the remainder herself, since the limit is per person, not per account.
Completion
Normally, solicitors like to complete about a week before moving. We completed at 4.30pm the day before moving. And, incidentally, ten hours before Nikki's folks were due at the airport to fly back to Toronto. Jeez.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
IVR - what *is* the point?
As you might have gathered, we're moving house :o)
So there's a lot of phoning around to do, getting the utility bills changed, updating address records and all that. And what's the worst thing about all that phoning? What's the one aspect of customer service that almost everyone complains about? IVR - Interactive Voice Response - those annoying "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" messages that all call centres use now.
Search on "IVR" and you'll find lots of happy people using it. Images such as this, and the smiling operators on the other end. Do they really exist? Does anyone ever look this joyful when undergoing the IVR experience? Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy to select from a list of options, I don't forget what the options were halfway through the list and I don't even mind when the options are so detailed they have to be nested three levels deep. What I do object to though, is when having selected all the right options, the information isn't used! Which seems to be most of the time!
Take United Utilities today. "For billing enquiries, including moving house, please press 1"...next level..."To supply a meter reading, please press 1, to enquire about a current bill, please press 2, to inform us you're moving house, please press 3"...I think there might have been one more level after that, but anyway the point is when I got through to the very nice lady, one of her first questions was "is it a problem with your bill I can help you with?" NO! I just TOLD you why I'm calling...by PRESSING NUMBER 3!! IVR and call systems designers please note. If you're going to ask for information, then at least present the answers to the call centre agent.
BT used to be the worst. The last time I had anything to do with them, which thankfully was many years ago, you used to have to key your entire 20-digit customer reference number into the IVR system. And then 30 minutes later when someone eventually answered the phone, they would ask you for the number again. "I just keyed the flipping thing in," I exploded to one hapless helpdesk jockey at the end of a particularly frustrating hour where I'd had to redial twice to get through. "Sorry sir," she replied, "our system isn't integrated with the telephone system, so we can't see what you put in." Doh!
So there's a lot of phoning around to do, getting the utility bills changed, updating address records and all that. And what's the worst thing about all that phoning? What's the one aspect of customer service that almost everyone complains about? IVR - Interactive Voice Response - those annoying "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" messages that all call centres use now.
Search on "IVR" and you'll find lots of happy people using it. Images such as this, and the smiling operators on the other end. Do they really exist? Does anyone ever look this joyful when undergoing the IVR experience? Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy to select from a list of options, I don't forget what the options were halfway through the list and I don't even mind when the options are so detailed they have to be nested three levels deep. What I do object to though, is when having selected all the right options, the information isn't used! Which seems to be most of the time!Take United Utilities today. "For billing enquiries, including moving house, please press 1"...next level..."To supply a meter reading, please press 1, to enquire about a current bill, please press 2, to inform us you're moving house, please press 3"...I think there might have been one more level after that, but anyway the point is when I got through to the very nice lady, one of her first questions was "is it a problem with your bill I can help you with?" NO! I just TOLD you why I'm calling...by PRESSING NUMBER 3!! IVR and call systems designers please note. If you're going to ask for information, then at least present the answers to the call centre agent.
BT used to be the worst. The last time I had anything to do with them, which thankfully was many years ago, you used to have to key your entire 20-digit customer reference number into the IVR system. And then 30 minutes later when someone eventually answered the phone, they would ask you for the number again. "I just keyed the flipping thing in," I exploded to one hapless helpdesk jockey at the end of a particularly frustrating hour where I'd had to redial twice to get through. "Sorry sir," she replied, "our system isn't integrated with the telephone system, so we can't see what you put in." Doh!
A Moving Moment
If you're moving house and things aren't going as quickly as you'd like, post a note on your blog to that effect to get things moving right along! Barely twenty-four hours after me saying that things weren't happening...they started happening!
We're now trying to get everything sorted in time to move on Friday - yes, Friday the 13th, but we're not superstitious. The rest of the boxes should be coming today and packing activities, more or less suspended for the last four weeks, will resume in earnest. This will be tricky, as we have family staying with us right now, so we'll have to pack around them and hope none of their stuff gets moved by mistake. They fly out on Friday morning a couple of hours before the removal van is scheduled to turn up.
The most agonizing thing about the move? Having to disconnect, and be without, the Internet access. We won't have a phone line for all of...three days. That will be weird. Do you think I'm addicted?
We're now trying to get everything sorted in time to move on Friday - yes, Friday the 13th, but we're not superstitious. The rest of the boxes should be coming today and packing activities, more or less suspended for the last four weeks, will resume in earnest. This will be tricky, as we have family staying with us right now, so we'll have to pack around them and hope none of their stuff gets moved by mistake. They fly out on Friday morning a couple of hours before the removal van is scheduled to turn up.
The most agonizing thing about the move? Having to disconnect, and be without, the Internet access. We won't have a phone line for all of...three days. That will be weird. Do you think I'm addicted?
Sunday, October 08, 2006
In Limbo
I read in the papers this week that the Pope has officially deleted the concept of 'Limbo' from the Catholic Consciousness. Traditionally this was the state of non-being to which souls were despatched that deserved neither to go to heaven nor hell. Interestingly (1) it was where the souls of unbaptised children were supposed to go and (2) there was never any escape from Limbo. Unlike Hell, where the souls could possibly be redeemed at the Last Trump (or whatever), anyone who found themselves in Limbo was stuck there forever. Nice. I've always thought organised religion of any kind was a hateful thing, but for parents who have already suffered the grief of losing very young children to have their religion pile on the agony by declaring that their children's souls are lost forever is (or was) totally wrong. Still, it's over now.
My reason for raising the subject of Limbo is: the Pope might have abolished the concept, but as far as our house move is concerned, we're still there! In Limbo!
It's been a week of mounting stress and frustration. Trying to aim for a moving date of next Friday, but with a short but significant list of snags. Do we really have access to the garage at the bottom of the garden? The "driveway" of the house doesn't actually belong to the plot! Are we likely to have a visit from someone telling us to tear down the conservatory? It doesn't need planning permission or building regulations approval, but there is an old covenant requiring the "consent of the chief rent owner" for any building erected on the property. But the chief rent hasn't been collected for at least 11 years.
It's a nice idea buying an old house, but if you expect it to be simple...think again!
My reason for raising the subject of Limbo is: the Pope might have abolished the concept, but as far as our house move is concerned, we're still there! In Limbo!
It's been a week of mounting stress and frustration. Trying to aim for a moving date of next Friday, but with a short but significant list of snags. Do we really have access to the garage at the bottom of the garden? The "driveway" of the house doesn't actually belong to the plot! Are we likely to have a visit from someone telling us to tear down the conservatory? It doesn't need planning permission or building regulations approval, but there is an old covenant requiring the "consent of the chief rent owner" for any building erected on the property. But the chief rent hasn't been collected for at least 11 years.
It's a nice idea buying an old house, but if you expect it to be simple...think again!
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Is It Really That Long?
God! More than two months since my last post? I haven't really got the hang of this blogging lark yet, have I? Mind you, I did warn you I was a bit hit-and-miss with diary type things. Or if I didn't, I should have.
So what's been happening?
Well we still haven't moved yet. If I had been doing a blow-by-blow account of the house moving process you'd probably have slit your wrists by now. I nearly have. Our lovely buyers have had private finance in place since about June, so keen were they to (a) get going and (b) not lose out. So they didn't need to sell their place and have been sitting on their hands ever since. We found a new place pretty soon too. It's lovely. But then I would say that wouldn't I, since I'm buying it? At least I hope I'm buying it, but the actual buying part never seems to get any closer.
It's just one thing after another. First of all the guy who we're buying off is moving a long way away, and couldn't find anywhere. Then he found somewhere and offered the asking price only to find that they run a pyramid scheme in the area, and the asking price is the minimum they expect, so he lost out on that. Another two week delay. Then he found somewhere else. His offer was accepted! We were off! Well, no, not "off" exactly. Not exactly sure what the delay was at that point - he didn't get his fixtures and fittings list, or something. And it took him ages to arrange a survey. And then the woman couldn't let the surveyor in on the appointed day. The list of delays and the waiting and the not knowing - it just goes on and on. My good lady points out that in Canada, when you buy a place, you fix a completion date there and then. Great idea! Sure, it means that some people fix a date 90 days in the future, or 120 days, but at least you know what you're aiming for. I can't even book the removals men and I've had to put the telephone move back twice already. Sheesh.
We thought we'd be really good and get a head start with the packing, so we ordered 30 boxes off t'Interweb (I can really recommend the A1 box company - fast, efficient and cheap, with great quality product) and they're all packed already.
So what's been happening?
Well we still haven't moved yet. If I had been doing a blow-by-blow account of the house moving process you'd probably have slit your wrists by now. I nearly have. Our lovely buyers have had private finance in place since about June, so keen were they to (a) get going and (b) not lose out. So they didn't need to sell their place and have been sitting on their hands ever since. We found a new place pretty soon too. It's lovely. But then I would say that wouldn't I, since I'm buying it? At least I hope I'm buying it, but the actual buying part never seems to get any closer.
It's just one thing after another. First of all the guy who we're buying off is moving a long way away, and couldn't find anywhere. Then he found somewhere and offered the asking price only to find that they run a pyramid scheme in the area, and the asking price is the minimum they expect, so he lost out on that. Another two week delay. Then he found somewhere else. His offer was accepted! We were off! Well, no, not "off" exactly. Not exactly sure what the delay was at that point - he didn't get his fixtures and fittings list, or something. And it took him ages to arrange a survey. And then the woman couldn't let the surveyor in on the appointed day. The list of delays and the waiting and the not knowing - it just goes on and on. My good lady points out that in Canada, when you buy a place, you fix a completion date there and then. Great idea! Sure, it means that some people fix a date 90 days in the future, or 120 days, but at least you know what you're aiming for. I can't even book the removals men and I've had to put the telephone move back twice already. Sheesh.
We thought we'd be really good and get a head start with the packing, so we ordered 30 boxes off t'Interweb (I can really recommend the A1 box company - fast, efficient and cheap, with great quality product) and they're all packed already.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Shall I go down the Parkway?
What is it with Manchester cabbies?
Don't get me wrong, most of them are the salt of the earth and I've had some great chats over the years owing to the fact that I slog between my house and Piccadilly Station quite a bit. But when I get back from London, quite often at approaching 9pm having left home before 5am, just about the last thing I want to hear is...
Don't get me wrong, most of them are the salt of the earth and I've had some great chats over the years owing to the fact that I slog between my house and Piccadilly Station quite a bit. But when I get back from London, quite often at approaching 9pm having left home before 5am, just about the last thing I want to hear is...
Do you want to go down the Parkway, mate?
No! What I want is for you to take me home, using your finely-honed taxi driver skills, local knowledge, and road craft to determine the best route for the time of day. It's not up to me to tell you which way I want to go. I'm paying you to decide. Get me home the quickest way.
What? Do they think I'm gonna suspect them of deliberately taking the longest route, or the one most choked with traffic, and then refuse to pay because they should have gone another way?
When I get a cab in London, I don't hear "should I go via Lambeth Bridge, mate?" or "do you want to go down Kensington High Street?" They just get on with it. God.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Chip & Pin
What annoys you most about Chip & Pin? Apart from the fact that you may have lost thousands if your card has been cloned, of course?
For me, it's the fact that (I assume) the checkout operator's workstation indicates that the card machine is ready to accept your PIN a fraction of a second before the card machine itself does. That's the only reason I can think of to explain the EXTREMELY IRRITATING fact that, at the very split-second the machine displays "Please enter your PIN" the checkout person will say "can you put your PIN in please?"
Yes!! I *know* I have to put my PIN in for God's sake! I was waiting for the machine to tell me it was ready! I can't type it in BEFORE, can I? So just shut up and give me a chance to do what I already knew I would have to do, at the time I'm invited to do it!
Actually I've developed a kind of sixth sense that tells me when the machine is about to ask me for my PIN, so I can start putting it in AS THE PROMPT APPEARS! Brilliant. I can't tell you how satisfying it was the first time the words "can you put your PIN in please?" died in the throat of the checkout girl as she realised I was already halfway through it.
Small pleasures :o)
For me, it's the fact that (I assume) the checkout operator's workstation indicates that the card machine is ready to accept your PIN a fraction of a second before the card machine itself does. That's the only reason I can think of to explain the EXTREMELY IRRITATING fact that, at the very split-second the machine displays "Please enter your PIN" the checkout person will say "can you put your PIN in please?"
Yes!! I *know* I have to put my PIN in for God's sake! I was waiting for the machine to tell me it was ready! I can't type it in BEFORE, can I? So just shut up and give me a chance to do what I already knew I would have to do, at the time I'm invited to do it!
Actually I've developed a kind of sixth sense that tells me when the machine is about to ask me for my PIN, so I can start putting it in AS THE PROMPT APPEARS! Brilliant. I can't tell you how satisfying it was the first time the words "can you put your PIN in please?" died in the throat of the checkout girl as she realised I was already halfway through it.
Small pleasures :o)
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Oxymorons
You've got to laugh, haven't you? Well at least, I did this morning walking through Westminster on my way to another of those interminable government meetings. I saw three things that ordinarily would have made me smile quietly to myself, or chuckle, but in the way of things comic their effect was cumulative, so by the time I came across the third I laughed out loud:
1. London cabs
Some of these have now started sporting the strapline "London black cabs - so much more than just a taxi" (or something like that). But are they though? No, not really. A taxi is a taxi - except of course for the legal difference between a hackney cab and a private hire vehicle. Why in today's world is it necessary to employ whizz-kid marketeers to tell us that something is "so much more" than it really is? I know what a taxi does. I know what it looks like. If it's raining, or I'm in a hurry, or where I'm going is too far to walk, I'll hail a cab. Otherwise I won't bother. I know how it works and what to expect. Why should I have to expect "so much more"? What else is there? Is the cabbie going to start offering me financial advice? Make me a BLT with tangy mayo to go? Cut my hair? No. Well, apart from the financial advice of course. Cabbies have been offering this unsolicited since time immemorial.
2. Scotland Yard.
The Met have employed the strapline "working together for a safer London" for some years now, but it's been a while since I've walked past their HQ. Last time I was there it looked quite accessible, but in the interim it has been surrounded by a steel-and-toughened-glass blast shield that could probably withstand the force of a Saturn V rocket from three feet. On top of that, the main door is protected with half-a-dozen of those thick concrete blocks that crop up in semi- permanent motorway repairs because they stay standing when hit by an articulated truck doing 60mph. So, lads, are we expecting trouble? Not QUITE achieved "a safer London" yet, then?
3. City of Westminster Cleaning Department.
My walk was briefly interrupted by a reversing council refuse collection vehicle (in the days before Political Correctness, we used to call them bin lorries) . This sparkly new vehicle was emblazoned with the words "Clean Streets" in two-foot-high green letters. As the driver completed his reversing manoeuvre, he flipped his cigarette butt out of the window onto the street, which heretofore had, presumably as a result of his colleagues' efforts, been Clean. Physician, heal thyself.
1. London cabs
Some of these have now started sporting the strapline "London black cabs - so much more than just a taxi" (or something like that). But are they though? No, not really. A taxi is a taxi - except of course for the legal difference between a hackney cab and a private hire vehicle. Why in today's world is it necessary to employ whizz-kid marketeers to tell us that something is "so much more" than it really is? I know what a taxi does. I know what it looks like. If it's raining, or I'm in a hurry, or where I'm going is too far to walk, I'll hail a cab. Otherwise I won't bother. I know how it works and what to expect. Why should I have to expect "so much more"? What else is there? Is the cabbie going to start offering me financial advice? Make me a BLT with tangy mayo to go? Cut my hair? No. Well, apart from the financial advice of course. Cabbies have been offering this unsolicited since time immemorial.
2. Scotland Yard.
The Met have employed the strapline "working together for a safer London" for some years now, but it's been a while since I've walked past their HQ. Last time I was there it looked quite accessible, but in the interim it has been surrounded by a steel-and-toughened-glass blast shield that could probably withstand the force of a Saturn V rocket from three feet. On top of that, the main door is protected with half-a-dozen of those thick concrete blocks that crop up in semi- permanent motorway repairs because they stay standing when hit by an articulated truck doing 60mph. So, lads, are we expecting trouble? Not QUITE achieved "a safer London" yet, then?
3. City of Westminster Cleaning Department.
My walk was briefly interrupted by a reversing council refuse collection vehicle (in the days before Political Correctness, we used to call them bin lorries) . This sparkly new vehicle was emblazoned with the words "Clean Streets" in two-foot-high green letters. As the driver completed his reversing manoeuvre, he flipped his cigarette butt out of the window onto the street, which heretofore had, presumably as a result of his colleagues' efforts, been Clean. Physician, heal thyself.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Freedom!
If you believe that open access to information is a good thing
If you believe, as a UK TV licence payer, that anyone in the world should have access to the archive material controlled by the BBC but which YOU have paid to create
If you believe that British values are worth promulgating in a world increasingly divided and misguided
If you believe that creativity would be nurtured, fostered and encouraged by being able to use, reuse and adapt material created by some of the most talented artists on the planet
...then you need to get yourself over to http://www.freeculture.org.uk/letters/CreativeArchiveLetter and sign the petition being run by the Open Knowledge Foundation and Free Culture UK to persuade the BBC to open their archives to the world.
Some small degree of access is already being set up by the BBC, and good on them for that, but a culture of restriction, licensing and control still pervades Auntie. In the 21st century, the world needs a better way. Go on, do your bit.
If you believe, as a UK TV licence payer, that anyone in the world should have access to the archive material controlled by the BBC but which YOU have paid to create
If you believe that British values are worth promulgating in a world increasingly divided and misguided
If you believe that creativity would be nurtured, fostered and encouraged by being able to use, reuse and adapt material created by some of the most talented artists on the planet
...then you need to get yourself over to http://www.freeculture.org.uk/letters/CreativeArchiveLetter and sign the petition being run by the Open Knowledge Foundation and Free Culture UK to persuade the BBC to open their archives to the world.
Some small degree of access is already being set up by the BBC, and good on them for that, but a culture of restriction, licensing and control still pervades Auntie. In the 21st century, the world needs a better way. Go on, do your bit.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
CP's Visit Report #1
Well my mate and writing partner CP arrived from Seattle yesterday into a squall of Manchester's finest mist.
This is her first visit to the UK and she is wired. She's brought with her a whole pile of writing ideas that we'll be doing together, some exercises to open up my throat for karaoke nights, and lots more besides. Jeez we're gonna be so busy we'll hardly have time for all the sight-seeing I had planned!
We did the 50c tour of the (unsold!) house, chewed the fat for a couple of hours until jet-lag set in and later we treated her to her first traditional English meal. Sorry to be predictable but what else than...fish and chips? With mushy peas? You bet.
We crammed more laughs into that first 12 hours than I believed possible but one of the best was when she said she was looking forward to seeing some British TV...and the major viewing we had lined up for the evening was the American Idol Final! Hahaha!! She'd already seen it live on Wednesday night, so was sworn to secrecy.
You won't believe the excitement we have arranged for today! A trip to Tesco's. Yes, I know, we're pushing the boat right out here. If word of this gets round we could become 2006's holiday destination of choice.
This is her first visit to the UK and she is wired. She's brought with her a whole pile of writing ideas that we'll be doing together, some exercises to open up my throat for karaoke nights, and lots more besides. Jeez we're gonna be so busy we'll hardly have time for all the sight-seeing I had planned!
We did the 50c tour of the (unsold!) house, chewed the fat for a couple of hours until jet-lag set in and later we treated her to her first traditional English meal. Sorry to be predictable but what else than...fish and chips? With mushy peas? You bet.
We crammed more laughs into that first 12 hours than I believed possible but one of the best was when she said she was looking forward to seeing some British TV...and the major viewing we had lined up for the evening was the American Idol Final! Hahaha!! She'd already seen it live on Wednesday night, so was sworn to secrecy.
You won't believe the excitement we have arranged for today! A trip to Tesco's. Yes, I know, we're pushing the boat right out here. If word of this gets round we could become 2006's holiday destination of choice.
Come on! Move!
This moving house lark is a pain in the arse innit? That guy I told you about before, our first viewer? We thought he wasn't gonna come at all but then it turned out he'd got lost. He loved the house (allegedly), as did his girlfriend. In fact, it was our house he was "really interested in" according to the agent. That was a week ago and we've not heard anything from him since.
We had a second viewing though, mid-week. Be still my beating heart. This lady brought her entire family with her. I'm not kidding there must have been second- and third-cousins in the mix, godchildren, next-door-neighbours. I started to wonder if they were testing the capacity of our house for parties. She loved the house (allegedly) and could "see herself living here." Then she phoned the agent to say unfortunately it was out of their price range. So why did you come and look at it then? Sheesh.
Still let's look on the bright side. Four weeks in and we've already had twice as many viewings as when we tried to sell it last year. That's got to be a good sign. Hasn't it?
We had a second viewing though, mid-week. Be still my beating heart. This lady brought her entire family with her. I'm not kidding there must have been second- and third-cousins in the mix, godchildren, next-door-neighbours. I started to wonder if they were testing the capacity of our house for parties. She loved the house (allegedly) and could "see herself living here." Then she phoned the agent to say unfortunately it was out of their price range. So why did you come and look at it then? Sheesh.
Still let's look on the bright side. Four weeks in and we've already had twice as many viewings as when we tried to sell it last year. That's got to be a good sign. Hasn't it?
Monday, May 15, 2006
Take a moment to lament...
...the passing of postage stamps.
"Have they passed?" I hear you ask, "I still use first-class stamps."
Indeed you do, as do I, but increasingly I'm finding (like today when I just popped out to the Post Office to mail a package to some friends in Canada) that our beautifully designed and colourful stamps with various face values are being replaced by boring white stickers, computer-generated and printed to the correct postage value in an unprepossessing light gray ink.
Yuk!
Where are the striking butterflies of iridescent hue? The celebrations of Britain's engineering heritage? The commemoration of Doctor Who's twenty-fifth anniversary?
One more step towards a colourless future of blighted bureaucracy and compromised culture.
"Have they passed?" I hear you ask, "I still use first-class stamps."
Indeed you do, as do I, but increasingly I'm finding (like today when I just popped out to the Post Office to mail a package to some friends in Canada) that our beautifully designed and colourful stamps with various face values are being replaced by boring white stickers, computer-generated and printed to the correct postage value in an unprepossessing light gray ink.
Yuk!
Where are the striking butterflies of iridescent hue? The celebrations of Britain's engineering heritage? The commemoration of Doctor Who's twenty-fifth anniversary?
One more step towards a colourless future of blighted bureaucracy and compromised culture.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Someone's coming!
Whooot! Got a phone call from the estate agent yesterday - someone's actually coming to view the house next Saturday! Be still my beating heart. We called into the agents for the people we want to buy from too, to find out why they haven't sent us confirmation in writing that our offer was accepted. Turns out they mailed it to #159 instead of #195! Sheesh! Even worse, there were THREE other people booked in to view OUR house that day. Oh God, please don't let any of them like it. The kitchen is way too small!! You can't cope with it having a laundry in the fourth bedroom! You don't like the road that much, do you? Just give us a week until this guy comes to see ours and buys it, and then our dream house will be off the market and all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well.
I'm not stressed at all by this. Oh no.
I'm not stressed at all by this. Oh no.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Take the testosterone out of driving
Every day I'm out there on the motorways around the country, and Manchester in particular, there seems to be more mad-heads on the road.
Explain this to me:
When you're driving along a motorway behind a long queue of traffic all sitting in the right-hand lane (the OVERTAKING lane, note) and no-one is overtaking because they are all lined up behind each other; when the middle lane (also an OVERTAKING lane, note) is completely empty for at least five cars in front; when you decide to use that space and accelerate forward gently, not aggressively, and pass that queue of cars at no more than +1 or +2 mph faster than they are travelling; when you catch up with the last car in the middle lane having passed those five or so cars that weren't overtaking; when you continue to coast in the middle lane for at least another two miles; when you then indicate and pull out slowly into the OVERTAKING lane again, into a gap that is six- to seven-car lengths long and the person you are pulling in front of is at least two hundred metres behind you...
When all those conditions exist, as they did at approximately 12:00 on Saturday last, WHY THEN does that person you have pulled out in front of think it's a good idea suddenly to accelerate for all he's worth to try and block your entry into the OVERTAKING lane and, when it becomes obvious that he can't do that because there was just too much space to catch up (so WHY did it bother him so much, when he wasn't making much progress before?), WHY does he then think it's a good idea to overtake you on the inside at speed, cutting past you with only a foot or so room, and then PULL IN in front of you, into the gap between you and the car in front which is now only marginally longer than a single car's length?
Having behaved like a total moron, why does he then sit in front of you, occasionally touching his brakes to cause you to also brake, until he is less than 50 yards from the exit he needs at which point he heads at something less than a 45 degree angle for the exit, cutting across three lanes of traffic in the space of those 50 yards?
Does this make him a better driver than you? Does it make him more of a man than you? Does it alleviate some strange imagined attack on his driver machismo?
Well mate...driver of the rather sad looking black Mondeo, license plate that looked ALMOST like a private plate but one bought by someone with not much money so that you have to really struggle to understand exactly how it can be a private plate but it obviously is intended to be because it's a V-reg on an almost-new car...well, I don't think it proves any of these things.
But that's just me.
You might think I was in the wrong in the first place for overtaking on the inside, but this was a long queue of cars all travelling at the same speed all in the outside lane with nothing on their left. Why were they there? The fact that I could undertake them so slowly, wait a couple of miles and then pull into a massive space all adds up to a careful considered manoeuvre in my book. One that is perfectly acceptable in many civilised countries with roads a lot less congested than our own (America, Canada...). Why does it cause such hostile negative reactions from moronic Mondeo drivers?
It's a mystery.
Explain this to me:
When you're driving along a motorway behind a long queue of traffic all sitting in the right-hand lane (the OVERTAKING lane, note) and no-one is overtaking because they are all lined up behind each other; when the middle lane (also an OVERTAKING lane, note) is completely empty for at least five cars in front; when you decide to use that space and accelerate forward gently, not aggressively, and pass that queue of cars at no more than +1 or +2 mph faster than they are travelling; when you catch up with the last car in the middle lane having passed those five or so cars that weren't overtaking; when you continue to coast in the middle lane for at least another two miles; when you then indicate and pull out slowly into the OVERTAKING lane again, into a gap that is six- to seven-car lengths long and the person you are pulling in front of is at least two hundred metres behind you...
When all those conditions exist, as they did at approximately 12:00 on Saturday last, WHY THEN does that person you have pulled out in front of think it's a good idea suddenly to accelerate for all he's worth to try and block your entry into the OVERTAKING lane and, when it becomes obvious that he can't do that because there was just too much space to catch up (so WHY did it bother him so much, when he wasn't making much progress before?), WHY does he then think it's a good idea to overtake you on the inside at speed, cutting past you with only a foot or so room, and then PULL IN in front of you, into the gap between you and the car in front which is now only marginally longer than a single car's length?
Having behaved like a total moron, why does he then sit in front of you, occasionally touching his brakes to cause you to also brake, until he is less than 50 yards from the exit he needs at which point he heads at something less than a 45 degree angle for the exit, cutting across three lanes of traffic in the space of those 50 yards?
Does this make him a better driver than you? Does it make him more of a man than you? Does it alleviate some strange imagined attack on his driver machismo?
Well mate...driver of the rather sad looking black Mondeo, license plate that looked ALMOST like a private plate but one bought by someone with not much money so that you have to really struggle to understand exactly how it can be a private plate but it obviously is intended to be because it's a V-reg on an almost-new car...well, I don't think it proves any of these things.
But that's just me.
You might think I was in the wrong in the first place for overtaking on the inside, but this was a long queue of cars all travelling at the same speed all in the outside lane with nothing on their left. Why were they there? The fact that I could undertake them so slowly, wait a couple of miles and then pull into a massive space all adds up to a careful considered manoeuvre in my book. One that is perfectly acceptable in many civilised countries with roads a lot less congested than our own (America, Canada...). Why does it cause such hostile negative reactions from moronic Mondeo drivers?
It's a mystery.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
War of the Worlds - MEN Arena
We went to see Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds tonight at M.E.N. Arena.
Wow.
I've been a fan of this since its release in 1978 but to see it live on stage for the first time was an experience I'm sure everyone in the audience tonight will be talking about for years to come. One of those concerts where those who missed it will never forgive themselves.
While there's still a chance to see it, I wouldn't want to give anything away to spoil the show. Suffice to say the original artists are just as good as they were 30 years ago, and the replacements every bit as good as the originals (with apologies to David Essex and the late great Phil Lynott). The CGI was amazing, the real-life scenes totally believable and the lighting simply awesome, especially the red pencil-spots that swept the audience in imitation of the heat rays.
A stunning sensory feast in every way.
See http://www.thewaroftheworlds.com/ for more on how the live show is being received.
Wow.
I've been a fan of this since its release in 1978 but to see it live on stage for the first time was an experience I'm sure everyone in the audience tonight will be talking about for years to come. One of those concerts where those who missed it will never forgive themselves.
While there's still a chance to see it, I wouldn't want to give anything away to spoil the show. Suffice to say the original artists are just as good as they were 30 years ago, and the replacements every bit as good as the originals (with apologies to David Essex and the late great Phil Lynott). The CGI was amazing, the real-life scenes totally believable and the lighting simply awesome, especially the red pencil-spots that swept the audience in imitation of the heat rays.
A stunning sensory feast in every way.
See http://www.thewaroftheworlds.com/ for more on how the live show is being received.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Doctor Who - the second series kicks off
And suddenly, there it was at last: Series 2, episode 1.
Long awaited, much trailered and perhaps the most hotly anticipated start to a TV series since .. well, since Series 1.
All in all, it was a good start, but for those of us who have been watching since the real Series 1, since the dark and distant days of 1963, I can't help thinking that it's all a bit quick. You know, we used to have entire stories spread out over four, six, or even eight episodes. A cliff-hanger at the end of every one.
The Doctor lands, and spends most of episode 1 scoping out the terrain of the new place. You might catch a glimpse of the resident alien right at the end of that first episode, or even (gasp!) have to wait until episode 2 to really get a clue what's going on.
Now?
He lands, pretty assistant by his side (some things don't change, thank God!) and within 45 minutes he's arrived at the right location, discovered the problem, avoided the bad guys, worked out what's wrong, fixed it and left again. A kind of scientifically-enhanced emergency plumber.
This isn't even a virtual 45 minutes, you understand. We get no clues about extra time passing by. There's no "later that day" or "fade into next week." He really does do the whole bit in 45 minutes. Frankly, it stretches credibility.
You'll probably say that today's audiences demand instant gratification. They need the pace to be break-neck. They have no patience or attention span for anything above the level of the Playstation. Is that right, though? Isn't it a self-fulfilling assumption? Isn't it worth at least giving longer stories a try?
Last season included some two-parters, as will this season. I found them much more satisfying and rounded. Two 45-minute episodes is equivalent to three episodes of the old show and is long enough to flesh things out a bit. I wonder what three episodes would be like? Even better, I'd suggest. More demanding on the storyteller, to be sure. Harder to keep the interest up. But worth it, IMO.
Long awaited, much trailered and perhaps the most hotly anticipated start to a TV series since .. well, since Series 1.
All in all, it was a good start, but for those of us who have been watching since the real Series 1, since the dark and distant days of 1963, I can't help thinking that it's all a bit quick. You know, we used to have entire stories spread out over four, six, or even eight episodes. A cliff-hanger at the end of every one.
The Doctor lands, and spends most of episode 1 scoping out the terrain of the new place. You might catch a glimpse of the resident alien right at the end of that first episode, or even (gasp!) have to wait until episode 2 to really get a clue what's going on.
Now?
He lands, pretty assistant by his side (some things don't change, thank God!) and within 45 minutes he's arrived at the right location, discovered the problem, avoided the bad guys, worked out what's wrong, fixed it and left again. A kind of scientifically-enhanced emergency plumber.
This isn't even a virtual 45 minutes, you understand. We get no clues about extra time passing by. There's no "later that day" or "fade into next week." He really does do the whole bit in 45 minutes. Frankly, it stretches credibility.
You'll probably say that today's audiences demand instant gratification. They need the pace to be break-neck. They have no patience or attention span for anything above the level of the Playstation. Is that right, though? Isn't it a self-fulfilling assumption? Isn't it worth at least giving longer stories a try?
Last season included some two-parters, as will this season. I found them much more satisfying and rounded. Two 45-minute episodes is equivalent to three episodes of the old show and is long enough to flesh things out a bit. I wonder what three episodes would be like? Even better, I'd suggest. More demanding on the storyteller, to be sure. Harder to keep the interest up. But worth it, IMO.
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