Monday, February 02, 2009
Been a week now
with no proper connectivity, despite the efforts from Bangalore. On Saturday morning, presumably their busiest day, the telephone system overloaded. Played music, which it has not done before. Then grade 1 message about how my call is important. Then music. Then grade 2 message about how my call is very important. Then music. Then continuous playing of grade 1 message, over and over again. Then line breaks. Telephone system fixed by Sunday but still no resolution. Now been passed to the engineering department with a special telephone number and my own PIN number. Have been assured for several days now that it will certainly be fixed today. Plus they are not even bothering to poke the line into temporary life any more using their remote test tool. Perhaps they have marked my card as impatient customer - but at least we have been nowhere near rude land so far. Everybody is being very polite to each other.
Starting to wonder what if anything I have got in the way of a service agreement. Can I deduct 22.3% of the monthly charge for loss of service plus penalty points?
Given that most of the country seems to have ground to a halt after last night's snow storm, rather surprised to fing Epsom library up and running, together with their Internet lines. I had rather thought that this non-revenue generating activity would have been stood down along with the schools. So here we are.
Yesterday struggled through the biting wind to the Chinese New Year festivities in and around Trafalgar Square. Very flash entertainment on the stage - maybe from China itself - but I hope they had some space heaters because some of the entertainers were not wearing very much, at least by comparison with me. And the recession must be getting here because the Metropolitan Police had parked a recruitment bus dressed up as a dragon on the edge of the square and had a huge queue of people queuing in the cold to make enquiries, if not to sign up then and there. Culinery highlight of the day was a sort of yellow cup cake filled with a sweet and savoury red goo. Said to be bean something, but very good.
Back in Epsom, warmed up with boiled smoked haddock with white cabbage and mashed potato. Having forgot to make hash (having obtained permission on this occasion), thought instead to beef up the potato with a good ration of chopped bacon (proper smoked streaky from Cheam that is) and onion fried in butter. So the overall effect of the meal was not that differant from that of the forgotten hash. Warmed us up to the extent that visiting TB no longer seemed like a good idea.
Struggled through the heavy snow to the library, having decided that cycling to Cheam might be a bit silly even if practical. Which it might have been if one did not mind walking in the side roads. Oddly, no tracks in the snow from birds or animals - although we did see one long tailed tit. Snow of snowman quality and we managed a wheel on Court Rec. Got up to about two feet in diameter when it started to crumble. Should have gone for a spherical rather than a cylindrical job which was too thin to support its weight. Some other people had managed a ball about a metre across. Their problem was not so much collapse as the thing getting too heavy to roll. Maybe we will do the snowman thing on return to town after joining the run on our local Waitrose.
Starting to wonder what if anything I have got in the way of a service agreement. Can I deduct 22.3% of the monthly charge for loss of service plus penalty points?
Given that most of the country seems to have ground to a halt after last night's snow storm, rather surprised to fing Epsom library up and running, together with their Internet lines. I had rather thought that this non-revenue generating activity would have been stood down along with the schools. So here we are.
Yesterday struggled through the biting wind to the Chinese New Year festivities in and around Trafalgar Square. Very flash entertainment on the stage - maybe from China itself - but I hope they had some space heaters because some of the entertainers were not wearing very much, at least by comparison with me. And the recession must be getting here because the Metropolitan Police had parked a recruitment bus dressed up as a dragon on the edge of the square and had a huge queue of people queuing in the cold to make enquiries, if not to sign up then and there. Culinery highlight of the day was a sort of yellow cup cake filled with a sweet and savoury red goo. Said to be bean something, but very good.
Back in Epsom, warmed up with boiled smoked haddock with white cabbage and mashed potato. Having forgot to make hash (having obtained permission on this occasion), thought instead to beef up the potato with a good ration of chopped bacon (proper smoked streaky from Cheam that is) and onion fried in butter. So the overall effect of the meal was not that differant from that of the forgotten hash. Warmed us up to the extent that visiting TB no longer seemed like a good idea.
Struggled through the heavy snow to the library, having decided that cycling to Cheam might be a bit silly even if practical. Which it might have been if one did not mind walking in the side roads. Oddly, no tracks in the snow from birds or animals - although we did see one long tailed tit. Snow of snowman quality and we managed a wheel on Court Rec. Got up to about two feet in diameter when it started to crumble. Should have gone for a spherical rather than a cylindrical job which was too thin to support its weight. Some other people had managed a ball about a metre across. Their problem was not so much collapse as the thing getting too heavy to roll. Maybe we will do the snowman thing on return to town after joining the run on our local Waitrose.
# posted by Jim @ 2:16 AM 
