The BT saga

Moving to the new flat has meant a long saga with BT in order to get a phone line and broadband. Of course I have no idea whether my experience is typical or just a crazy anomaly but it has consumed so much time and energy that I can’t resist trying to write it down. The key question is of course whether I can write it without degenerating into a quivering heap with my blood pressure going through the roof.

The saga began before we moved. I was impressed by Sky’s offer of phone plus broadband at a good price and with all the TV stuff as well. I signed up after talking to some very helpful people on the phone, my old phone at the old house, that is, they sent me a helpful text the next day saying how pleased they were to have me as a customer, and two days later they sent me a text saying they were sorry, but they couldn’t do it after all. I phoned. The nice lady sounded upset and set about investigating and after about ten minutes said she had no idea what the problem was. So we cancelled the order and did another one. Another text next day saying how pleased they were to have me back, and next day a text saying that the refund of my original order was under way, and the next day a new text saying that they were sorry but they couldn’t do it after all. More phone calls and it remained a total mystery.

“There must be something about the exchange,” was the best they could do.”

I went into Worcester and tried to sign up with a SKY operation in the shopping centre. Ten minutes on their computer got the same message. “Sorry, we can’t do broadband at that address.”

So if Sky can’t do it I went back to BT. I ordered a new phone at the new address by filling in the form on the Internet, and then the trouble started.

They sent me emails and text messages, all saying different things. It took me some while to figure out how to export text message so that I can show them on here, so this is just a sample.

Foolishly, I tried to phone them in order to find out which day they were actually coming. That involves working your way through lots of choice menus, which usually start off by asking you to key in the number that you are calling about, tough when you don’t have a number yet. Some of the time I just had to hang on until the computer felt sorry for me and connected me to a human.

How we ended up with multiple order numbers and multiple dates on which engineers were supposed to come and connect us up, with what they expect to be different packages, no one knows. Phoning only makes it worse.

In addition to the various texts and emails I also had a voicemail informing me that there was a problem and they would get back to me.

With the possibility of an engineer visiting on 20^th, 24^th, or 27^th I tried phoning to clarify what was actually going to happen. I was informed that 27^th was the only valid date and that my order did not include broadband and could not be altered. Luckily a man turned up on the 24^th and installed a phone and a package of broadband kit arrived. The phone worked but the broadband didn’t. I waded my way through the phone menus again and was informed that there was a problem at the exchange and that the broadband would start on 31Feb.

“What about 27^th, can you make sure to cancel that.”

“There is definitely not anyone coming on 27^th.”

Fortunately, we were in on the 27^th when two men arrived, expecting to connect a phone, actually with a different phone number. We politely asked them to go away, after first offering them a cup of tea; after all, they work for an insane organization so they might need some sustenance.

The broadband did actually start working on the 31^st and two days later a man phoned asking how to find the flat because he was coming to fit our phone. We explained that we now had a phone, had told a few hundred people the number and didn’t really want another one. As he had not actually made it as far as the flat, we didn’t offer tea.

I decided to leave it a few days before writing this piece, in case anything else happened. Two days ago I had another voicemail saying my order had not gone through and to please contact BT. I note that the phone number they quote does not work from mobile phones, yet they are calling to say that they haven’t connected me. What sort of world do they live in?

I started writing this piece, ready to lay all of the problems at the door of BT, but that would be unfair. Yesterday I caught a piece on the BBC with a quote from Julia Stent, director of telecoms at uSwitch. For those not in the UK, that is the outfit set up by the UK Government to help us all switch provider in order to promote more competition and supposedly better service as a result. She said,

“Britain might be riding the wave of a super-fast broadband revolution, but for 49% who get less than the national average broadband speed, the wave isn't causing so much a splash as a ripple.”

Is it any wonder that BT are hopeless, when one of the key agencies responsible for improving things has not yet realized that about 50% of the population will always get a below average service, it’s the nature of averages. If they can’t get that right, can they even count? 

65 Days

I haven’t written a blog since before Christmas, mostly because we have been moving house.

That isn’t really much of an excuse because Lois has written something every day, much of it about the actual process of moving. On the other hand, it has meant that she has hogged a certain amount of the meagre internet connection that we have managed to keep running. Sometimes by driving into town to drink coffee in places that had a WiFi, sometimes by other means, but never courtesy of BT who seem to think that a modern society requires people to be cut off from communication for a month if they want to move house.

I have the added excuse that I have been working with the iPad, because Lois has hogged the Mac Air and I find blogging from the pad a bit tedious. This is probably my fault, but something funny happens to the formatting when I write in Pages and try to upload to blogger.

For the last few weeks, we have got onto the web with a MiFi, so I have less excuse, but by then the number of things I might write about had also become daunting.

All excuses have now gone, even BT have relented and got us connected to both phone and WiFi. Why not ask Sky or Virgin or someone else I hear you say. The fact is Sky simply refused to give us broadband, said they couldn’t do it. I suspect that this is because we are in a new building and in the nine months while it was being constructed no one thought to make sure that phone lines were up to scratch. We did mention it to the developers about 10 times, but got no response.

So all this amount to there being a number of sagas that I will need to write in order to dump all my frustrations and anxieties on any poor reader. For today a summary, of sorts will have to do, in the form of a poem, a ditty, or maybe it is a song.

Days of Christmas

The first day of Christmas the agent said to me,

“I’ve found a buyer

who will take your house

with the partridge and the pear tree. 

It is true, we do have a pear tree and a pair of partridges often visit, though I’ve never seen them in the tree.

On the second day of Christmas the plot begins to thicken

We leave the Scottish land

Cutting short our tripping

Driving miles and miles in the dark

And the weather breaks, so we drive back in pouring rain, stopping in the lake district to sleep.

On the third day of Christmas negotiation starts for real

We agreed upon a date,

Much too soon for comfort,

but better to be sure I guess.

Are we lucky to find a buyer who wants to move at breakneck speed?

On the fourth day of Christmas, we begin to plan

we phone a moving man.

Who came at once to see,

Wrote it all in a little book,

And he gave us boxes and lots of lovely string, well sticky tape actually.

On the fifth day of Christmas

We start to throw away

All the attic stuff

We’ve kept for years and years

So much stuff we never knew we had and a hundred reminders of former lives, but it all has to go.

On the sixth day of Christmas,

We telephone to Sky

Try to book a phone

And lovely broadband too

One of the most charming and helpful telephone operator I have ever encountered, and they have a new system that brings you back to the first operator even if you have to visit other departments.

On the seventh day of Christmas,

We hire a storage room

And then another too

And finally a third

And the people at Storage King are a delight and their boxes are the best, and they provide trolleys, though Lois doesn’t seem to be able to drive one in a straight line.

On the eighth day of Christmas,

The removal man phones up

And cancels.

So we hunt around all day for another man with a van, and throw away more and more stuff we’re never going to move.

On the ninth day of Christmas,

Sky send us a text

Refund on the way

They can’t fit the line

Not only that, they have no idea why, and when we try again, they repeat the booking and subsequent refund as though we are in a time warp.

On the tenth day of Christmas,

BT cut off the phone

We redirect the post

And pack the motorhome in case

And a man from Shy phones up to ask if he can fit the line tomorrow, obviously no one told him the thing has been cancelled twice.

On the eleventh day of Christmas,

We start to pack the van

When the agent gives a call

We’re not moving house today

Half the money has failed to arrive, some problem with a mortgage broker failing to provide information. The buyer is heartbroken, but the breaker is the broker.

On the twelfth day of Christmas,

We activate plan B

Talking to the bank

Most of the working day.

But they make countless cock-ups and  the thing drags on and on. Twelve days are not enough. 

On the sixteenth day of Christmas

We finally move in

Then walk along the river

Drink a glass of wine in Brown

And generally feel a whole heap better because we are now on the third floor a long way above the river, which is rising rapidly.

On the twenty seventh day of Christmas

The money changes hands

The old farm-house is sold

And we open up the champagne.

The bank ring me up to say did you realise a huge sum of money has appeared in your account. Are they completely stupid, most of the money is the mortgage we got from them because the other bank was so slow? They have to work so hard to get their bonuses.

On the sixty fifth day of Christmas

I start to blog again

No partridge or pear tree 

but a nice view of the river instead

The view from our new living room

Travels

Illuminated fish parade in Durham

No blogging for a while because we’ve been travelling. When Lois was a student at St Andrews, she did a trip around Scotland on a bike and envied people in campervans. So, we did the trip in our new van. We also took in the Lumiére in Durham on the way.

The Lumiére was fascinating, I hesitate to say illuminating, because most of the time I had no idea what was going on or why. For example, a parade of children walks through the streets each child holding illuminated fish, made of paper maché. The fish are about 2 or 3 feet long and on sticks so they appear to float above the crowd. An enormous Heron, similarly illuminated, leads them. Why would fish be led by a Heron? Don’t Herons eat fish? Or has someone just discovered that Herons are now into fish farming? Anyway, it filled the street with a massive crowd all saying oooh and aaah. If you get enough kids from enough schools taking part, I guess you are guaranteed a big crowd of parents, aunties, uncles and other associates. I loved the huge perspex bubble over the statue. Filled with polystyrene balls and fans it made a snowstorm, like those little models you turn upside down.

One thing I did notice was the body mass of the people in the crowd. Mostly they look thin and fit. Durham centre is largely pedestrianised and full of steep hills that everyone must walk up and down to get anywhere at all. Have they solved the obesity crisis by getting everyone to take more exercise? It ought to be possible to compare obesity in hilly towns with flat ones. Someone should get onto it.

Throughout the town there are fixed displays, often exploiting reflections from the river that winds through Durham. Other features light up ancient buildings in novel ways, sometimes telling stories, sometimes just making ancient beauty visible. I found it hard to take good pictures because there were so many people milling around that it was very difficult to get a clear view of anything. 

After Durham, we set off north, hoping to find a service station to park at overnight. Unfortunately, we missed the last one on the A1 because the car park signs were confusing and we rapidly found ourselves in a position where there was no way back. A 23foot motorhome is not an HGV, not a coach and not a car or a caravan, so sometimes, particularly in the dark, it can be hard to guess where they want you to park.

Lois doing her own breakfast

Further north we found the road closed, with diversion signs. Very diverting, in that we spent the next hour in low gears winding and zig-zagging around parts of Northumberland, gradually running low on fuel and wondering what sort of maze we had stumbled into. We eventually emerged onto the A68 and found a lay bye with a sign that implied that there would be a snack truck during the daytime. We took that as an indication that it might be OK to park for the night slept. In due course, I had breakfast served by Sally who provides meals to truckers every day from 7am until 2pm. Such roadside meals are awash with gluten, so Lois ate in the van.

Sunrise on the A68

The truckers told us there was a fuel station a few miles south, so we went back that way. Unfortunately, the crucial sign giving directions was almost invisible behind a mass of foliage and we ended up on the A69 going east. As luck would have it, we had enough fuel to get into Newcastle, so filled up and spent the morning at the Sage centre and the Baltic Gallery.

The Baltic had an exhibition of the Turner Prize contestants. I’ve looked at many Turner exhibits over the years but this one did the least for me that I can remember. OK so it’s good to give one’s scoffing muscles a work out from time to time, but fortunately, there were another exhibits in the Baltic, and they were more fun, as was the graffiti on the walls outside. 

The most northerly surf beach on mainland UK

From Newcastle, we went to Aviemore, too soon for snow, but a good chance to check things out. The next day we headed on north until we could get no further.







Along the way we started getting messages that there had been progress on the house selling front so headed home rather than on around the north and west of Scotland.

We came down through the Great Glen, not seeing any monsters on Loch Ness, went through Glen Coe, around Loch Lomond through the traffic in Glasgow and down the M6. 

Reflections on the Michael Jackson case

I'm not surprised that the jury found Micheal Jackson's doctor guilty. Using a drug that is pretty much a general anaesthetic, as a sleeping aid, always seemed unwise. The pity of the whole thing is that there has been little exploration of the deeper issues. I suspect that if the doctor had refused to use this drug, or something similar, then he would simply have been fired. Very rich people, who live in a bubble to protect them selves from the downside of their celebrity, have an inevitable tendency to surround themselves with yes men. There are probably yes women involved as well; I don't want my use of the cliché to be sexist.

This is not just true of pop stars or tycoons in general; politicians suffer the same problem. When you are in a position of power, it is most important to surround yourself with people who will tell you the truth, whether or not it is uncomfortable. The Jackson trial at least does all the underdogs in that situation a favour. We can at least imagine a conversation where the next Dr Murray says, "No I won't give you that drug. Look at it this way, if I do, I might get four years, but you will be dead. Your choice."

Of course Dr Murray may have factored all that into his calculation, maybe he figured he would be fired before he accidentally killed Micheal Jackson. Maybe he figured that if he got four years, probably out in two for good behaviour, then he was still being paid pretty well on average, plus of course he will have plenty of time in prison to write the book and that will bring in a dollar or two.

OK I am lapsing into cynicism, it seems that Dr Murray is actually being foolish enough to spend some of his hard earned money on appealing. If he is not careful the lawyers will have all his money before he even gets the book written. It would be better to blame Jackson and announce to the world that he is sorry that he succumbed to the pressure of the money, the celebrity and everything else. Substantial parts of the media still call Micheal Jackson, "Wacko Jacko". There must be an argument for Murray along the lines of, "you have no idea how crazy it was, I regret that I was sucked into it all, I should have been stronger, I cared for him a great deal, I thought that if I quit then he would just hire someone less competent who would be persuaded to take even bigger risks, I'm sadder and wiser now." Something along those lines would probably get him back on the medical register. Maybe he should retrain as a psychiatrist.

Despite that, Dr Murray does deserve a lot of what has befallen him, because one way or another he brought some of this on himself. It doesn't matter exactly what happened. I remember the professor of anaesthetics saying to us "Once you give patients these drugs you have taken over responsibility for keeping them alive." Murray either never had that lecture, or he forgot. Whether Jackson in a semi comatose condition took some extra drug, or whether Murray gave too much, does not matter. Anyone using a drug that powerful, takes on a responsibility to make sure that nothing goes wrong. That means continuously monitoring what happens. Murray’s defence was futile; by admitting that he was not in the room, he had effectively admitted guilt. If the right level of observation had been in place then Jackson could not have given himself more of the drug. Equally, if proper monitoring had been in place someone would have seen that Jackson had stopped breathing and done something about it. 

The trial had to focus on what happened and who was to blame, but trials can sometimes ask the wrong question. If we ask instead "What would it have taken for this not to happen?" we get a very different answer. I am paraphrasing that question from something that was said to me by a man who investigated airplane crashes. I think it is a very powerful question because it tends to focus on learning and solutions rather than blame.

What would it have taken? It needed a doctor who could stand up to Michael Jackson's foolish demands. Someone who would not use a general anaesthetic as a sleeping pill. Of course if he had had such a doctor Jackson might well have fired him. It would take someone who not only stood up to Jackson, but also managed to do so in such a way that he wasn’t fired.

It is tough for an individual doctor in such circumstances, do you quit, or get fired, knowing that your patient may well take even bigger risks with a new doctor; or do you soldier on trying to walk the line between safe practice and not getting fired. This is only really a problem in private practice. In an institution, like the NHS, or a large hospital, an individual doctor could appeal to higher authority, to someone not connected with the individual case, who could impart wisdom and insist on sensible practice. This sort of system is called clinical governance, and that was what was lacking in Dr Murray’s case. He was accountable to no one, and supervised by no one, until the court case.

Politicians and the media often rail against medical institutions and make it seem as though an individual private doctor is the top of the range as far as care goes. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t, but unless you are sure you can tell the difference, no matter how rich you are, you are safer with a system or an institution.

Snuff, Terry Pratchett and literature

My blogging has been curtailed this last two weeks because, first Lois, and then me, have been struck by a virus that likes to camp out in your sinuses and generally make life miserable. If that wasn’t enough, we have also had the decorator in. The combination of inflamed nasal passages and assault by strange paint fumes definitely subdues the creative urge.

To the rescue comes Terry Pratchett in the form a new novel, “Snuff”. As it happens I accidentally ordered the audio book rather than the hardback, or possibly Amazon accidentally sent me that version. Either way it is something of a godsend because reading with your sinuses blocked and your eyes streaming is no fun.

I can’t as yet make any sort of proper critical assessment of the story, because the disadvantage of the audio book is that it is easy to fall asleep while it is playing, especially if you have your eyes closed. No one has yet made the Iphone app that stops the playback when the listener starts snoring. How hard can it be? This means that despite listening to ‘Snuff ‘on and off for four or five days I have still not heard it from end to end in sequence.

Whilst this is unusual, it has some advantages. Losing the plot makes one notice the actual writing, the turns of phrase, gems of description and so on. This should come as no surprise I guess, because every creative writing class I’ve attended always dealt with extracts of books when discussing technique and style. It is all too easy to dismiss Terry Pratchett as a rather successful comedy fantasy writer who has been very prolific and generated many fans, but because the books are full of Trolls, Dwarfs, Dragons, and in this case Goblins, they are somehow not literature.

This is nonsense and most probably a temporary position in the long evolution of the subject. No one suggests that Gulliver's Travels is some sort of silly fantasy novel, not to be taken seriously. Gulliver visited imaginary lands with imaginary species, not quite the disc world, but not a lot different. Orwell's Animal Farm sets the book on what is presumed to be Earth, but the animals talk and behave in ways that we know animals do not. Again, this is not widely regarded as a trivial book. Alice in Wonderland and its sequel are sometimes thought of as children's books, but never dismissed as trivial.

What do these authors do? They set up an invented world in order to focus on the relationships and scenarios between the key players. The dialogue and management of situations is used to get the messages across. What does Pratchett do? He sets his books on an imaginary world where the play of situations and characters makes the point. On top of that, he manages to produce endearing characters with whom vast audiences have an emotional attachment and hence has created a market for sequel after sequel. In his books, he tackles issues such as class prejudice, racism, misuse of power, foolish management, and many others. He addresses the human condition, both individually and as human societies. On top of that, he writes astonishingly well, and he is funny; maybe that's a crime to the literati, though that accusation is not levelled at Swift or Carroll.

Pratchett is often very economical in his use of words, capturing the essence of a scene simply by triggering the imagination of the reader. "Miss Beadle led the way into a room in which chintz played a major part." Do you need an elaborate description of the room in order to have a picture of the room in your mind?

Here is Pratchett, through a character, being tongue in cheek about the writing craft, "one day I thought, how hard can it be? After all most of the words are going to be and, the and I and it, and so on, and there's a huge number to choose from, so a lot of the work has already been done for you."

In Snuff, he develops the Goblins as characters, using them to explore a number of aspects of racial prejudice. Much of the language used by the oppressors could be taken straight from the concept of manifest destiny that was used to exterminate the Red Indians, or the sort of things that were said about Aboriginals in Australia or used to defend Apartheid. Pratchett goes further, the goblins say little, but when they do speak, he gives their speech a unique cadence, so that not only do you know when a goblin is speaking, but you have to concentrate. Too much of this would be a bore, so it is used very sparingly, and hence is even more effective. How many writers can say that you can tell which of their characters is talking, simply from the way the words work.

"Wonderful is good," said the goblin girl, as though tasting every word. "Gentle is good, the mushroom is good. Tears are soft. I am tears of the mushroom, this much is now said." The character comes straight off the page.

Of course he can make the language funny too "She's got me marked down for balls, dance, dinners and, oh yes soirées,' he finished, in the tones of a man genetically programmed to distrust any word with an acute accent in it." Again, it is economic, but there is no doubt, along with the laugh, that you know the man.

I appreciate that I may be in an abnormal suggestible and emotional state, in that this ‘Snuff’ has rescued me from three days of feeling miserable and bored and unable to breathe properly, but I'm still pretty sure that this book, like so many other Pratchett novels could just as easily be classified as literary fiction as fantasy. Surely, it is time to wake up and realise that Pratchett is very much a political, and managerial satirist – a commentator on modern life, using an important literary tradition of an imaginary world as the vehicle.

Of course, in that tradition, Pratchett has gone too far, writing more than fifty books, and producing endearing characters that people want to hear more of, hardly 1984. Alice did at least have a sequel, but there does not seem to be have been much demand for the further adventures on Animal Farm or Gulliver’s next voyage. On the other hand, I suppose that if word got around that Pratchett, despite his knighthood, is not a pillar of society, but is in fact a subversive political satirist putting forward an egalitarian liberal philosophy, he’d probably never sell another book.

Coffee on the move

Among the many things involved in buying and breaking in a new motorhome is the question of espresso. Although these mini palaces on wheels come with beds, air conditioning, a shower and loo, fridge freezer, TV aerial point, gas, electricity in multiple voltages, and a gas cooker, it is a sad fact that espresso is not built in.

We have discovered the solution, or at least a solution. The little machine in the picture makes a single cup of the right stuff. The thing is ingenuity itself, but understanding the way it works leads one to wonder what the prototypes were like.

It operates as follows; first, you pump up pressure, watching a gauge to ensure that you have it exactly right. You lock in the pressure, pour in a measured amour of hot water, add coffee in a small device that fits inside, screw on the cover, turn it upside down over the cup and release the pressure. Water is forced through the coffee and out drips a genuine espresso (for a video see this link). You can get a version that uses coffee pods or you can put your own grounds into little capsule filter devices that fit inside. I use the grounds because I usually mix my own blend.

Our machine is covered in elegant black plastic to add style.

So, what we have is a bicycle pump with a sieve in a box, to which is added boiling water. Trying to imagine the process through which this was invented opens up all sorts of possibilities. I picture some enterprising boy scout, or possibly an intrepid cyclist sitting by a campfire idly playing with his bicycle pump while a kettle boils.

What if I attached the pump to the spout? The pressure inside would rise and superheated water would result. Did he pour this onto coffee grounds? Or maybe he had one of those vicious little Italian devices where you put the water in and as it boils the steam forces it through a central chamber full of coffee grounds. Those things do make espresso. We used to have one when I was a kid, but we never did find a way of avoiding the boiling water coming up with explosive force. The flavour was hard to judge when you have to lick the coffee off the kitchen walls.

At higher altitude, say if you were on a skiing holiday, the water boils at a lower pressure, so the coffee might be nothing like as good. Perhaps our intrepid cyclist was up a mountain, making unsatisfactory espresso in the Italian style when it crossed his mind that a bicycle pump might just make all the difference. Maybe a tyre valve welded on to the side of a coffee pot; who knows.

Whilst I am fascinated to know how the inspiration came about, the main thing is, it makes good coffee and it is very portable. You don’t even need a kettle, hot water from a thermos will do.

Is this really October?

We spent the first day of October trying out our new Campervan, except it is so posh it has to be called a Motorhome. It may even be a Recreational Vehicle. We slept last night at a conventional camp site where you can plug in electricity, but first thing this morning we drove down to Widemouth beach and watched the surf roll in.

The sun came up into a hazy blue sky, kicking off what may turn out to be the hottest ever day in October, we won't know that till the weathermen have done their sums, but down here in Cornwall it is near perfect (It did break the record). Add to the sunshine the fact that the surf is clean and up to 3 to 4 feet. The blackboard outside the lifeguard hut sums it up Conditions - Great! Thanks to the skill of the Met Office we knew it was coming and packed our wet suits and surf boards. The only thing wrong with the whole scene is that I am nothing like as fit as I used to be.

We surfed for about half an hour and then tested the next piece of kit in the van. We had hot showers, right there at the beach, changed into dry clothes and strolled off to have lunch in the beach cafe. We could have cooked our own, but we have a long running piece of research going to find the best beach cafe in the world. This one is OK but unlikely to make it into the top ten.

The economy may be in dire straights but it is interesting to see that the car park is full. Plenty of people still have the means to charge down to Cornwall to enjoy the sunshine and fill their shoes with sand. Cameron and Osborne need to lighten up and hit the beaches.

The only thing to diminish a perfect day is that there’s virtually no phone signal. Although I can write this on the Ipad, I can’t upload it until I get home, five hours drive away.
It appears that the temperature record for October was broken, Up to 29.9C. We now can enjoy the joke that the previous record temperature for October happened in March. (March is a place in Cambridgeshire).