pumpkinstrokemarrow

Started the week playing hunt the compost bucket in the kitchen. Not in the usual hole when it was time to empty the fatty water from the frying pan into it. Searched the kitchen. Into the garage in dressing gown to search the garage. Found the bucket, emptied the water into it, returned bucket to the usual hole. Then discovered that the right bucket had been sitting in the corner of the kitchen all the time, entirely visible, albeit in the wrong place. Some seconds later, situation entirely recovered.

But started to wonder what will happen when the food waste disposal regulations (2007 part 4a section xii(g)) come into force on 1 April next and all those people who live in tower blocks have to keep separate, enclosed containers for their food waste, for periodic collection by the council contractor. Will the idea be that they keep their food waste in their flats for the duration, rushing down twenty floors to place the container in the official area not more than 30 minutes before the scheduled arrival of the contractor's lorry? Or perhaps in the corridors outside their flats? Or perhaps in some waste disposal area outside? In which last case, there will clearly need to be a further contract for some vermin disposal people.

Then started to wonder whether the mania for regulation is new. I was shown a long quote once from an ancient Roman general called Suetonius, moaning about the incessant reorganisations of his part of the Roman military bureaucracy. Dickens wrote about the Circumlocution Office. Sundry other famous authors have written about the massive bureaucracies of the central and eastern powers in the 19th century. So there is evidence against. On the other hand, it is alleged that the volume of regulation in the UK, whether measured by number of pages or by weight, continues to increase. Perhaps it even continues to accelerate. One answer might be the use of sophisticated word processors which make it so much easier to produce this stuff, to some large extent without the bother of having to read it.

But another might be the age-old desire to be bossy. In the bad old days, most people of any account had plenty of opportunity to be bossy in a personal way. The head of the household - that is to say the father - bossed everybody in the household about. The deputy head could boss her daughters and the servants about. The sons could boss the daughters. The top servants could boss the bottom servants. The sprog could boss the dog. The top employee could boss the bottom employee. The capitalist could be very bossy all around. The general could boss to the extent of ordering corporal punishment all around the ranks (commissioned officers were exempt. Non commissioned and warrant officers in no mans (where should the apostrophe be? Should it be at all?) land). But now, we are awash with rights. No-one is allowed to boss anyone around anymore. We all have to be team players and be on first name terms with everybody. We have to ask school children whether they think that the lesson they had just had fitted in with their personal development plans. If we step out of line, our victim can always play one or several of the equality, diversity, equality in diversity, diversity in equality or human rights cards. So the natural urge to be bossy has been driven underground.

But for some, there is a way out. In the case of those in the lucky position so to do, they can make lots of regulations to boss people about. This is not quite as much fun as doing it face-to-face, but it is the best most of us can do these days. And one can derive vicarious satisfaction from the knowledge of that army of regulators milling around the country being officious. Maybe they even have special rooms where they can watch it live over a few tinnies (maybe even the odd substance), piped in from all those CCTV cameras which were put up for our safety and security.

Back at the ranch, a small skirmish with British Telecom. At around 12 noon yesterday, my PC announced that my broadband service had been suspended because my bill had not been paid. Now my bill has been paid by direct debit for around a year. There had been a bit of a glitch in my keeping track of this as the payment date is that of my monthly bank statement, so the payment drifts from the top of one bill to the bottom of the next, and with a bank statement lost in the post, there was a distinct possibility that something had gone astray. Didn't think much about it because British Telecom payments people have a direct debit mandate and should be able to sort out any snafu for themselves. They might even do me the courtesy, as British Gas did when something of the same sort happened, of writing to me. Instead of that, without warning my PC tells me that I am suspended and that I can either pay one telephone number, in which case I will be un-suspended within 12 hours, or phone another between the hours of 0800 and 1800 Mondays to Fridays. Not Sunday. Not wanting to make a payment outside of the direct debit which I imagined would cause great confusion, I settled for waiting until Monday. Then started to realise how many of my affairs are locked into the Internet. I could not, for example, check my British Telecom account. Or my bank. Or anything much else. Much grinding of remaining teeth.

But, by Monday morning (not having bothered to try again in the interval. After all, a suspension is a suspension), I try the call centre promptly at 0805 to be told that, sadly, the call centre is closed. Then try the PC again to get the suspension message with the phone numbers and times of the cell centre back again, just in case I had written them down incorrectly. Lo and behold, broadband service back again and no suspension message with the phone number. But check bank account and direct debit alive and well. Last payment last month as scheduled. Check British Telecom account and while it looked OK, there did not appear to by any way to find out what direct debit payments one had made or not made. The relevant bit of this complicated site was geared around bills and direct debit mandates, not actual payments. Try the telephone number I had been given on Sunday before and after 0900, to be told that British Telecom remained very sorry but that this call centre remained closed. So we seem to be stuck. Will I ever know why my expensive and fully paid up broadband service was so arbitarily suspended?

Was there some computer snafu at the British Telecom end and they have turned their call centre off until the zillions of people affected calm down?

Should point out that this is only the second or third time in two or three years that this broadband service has misbehaved. Other people have much worse horror stories.