Serviced
Posted: Wed 11 June, 2014 Filed under: Customer Services, Driving Leave a comment »The Saab went in for another service this week – nothing major, just another 10,000 miles and nagging for the service. I knew that last time they’d said about a couple of small things that needed doing (replacement brake fluid and the like) and that was it.
The Slab has been one of my better purchases, in fairness. It’s an old boat of a thing, but it just shrugs off the miles and does really well.
As it is, when I bought the Slab the price was £1,000, and I got about £700 back in various guises (sale of the Mondeo for spares/repair, refunded road fund tax, so on and so forth). The garage I use would pay me £2,000 in part-ex (and will almost certainly buy it for spares etc. if it dies in a spectacular fashion like Mondeo did) so it’s already a good deal.
As it is, with the most recent service I’m back up to having spent about £1,000 on it all told. Three services (one major at 100,000, two minors – for some reason Slabs are maintenance-heavy, which I didn’t know), replacement brake discs, and that’s it.
Yes, a pretty good deal.
Connected? Maybe
Posted: Thu 1 May, 2014 Filed under: BT, Customer Services, Domestic, Utilities Leave a comment »Following on from the last couple of posts about my connection, the guy from BT came out today and all seems to be well.
A new master socket appears to have fixed things – which is better than I was expecting. I’d kind of thought it was likely to be a replacement cable, but thankfully that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Of course, time will tell – if we get another weekend of vile weather and the connection starts dropping again, then we’ll be back to Square One.
Connected? Revisited
Posted: Wed 30 April, 2014 Filed under: BT, Customer Services, Domestic, Technology, Utilities Leave a comment »Back at the start of March, I was having issues with my Broadband connection, which BT was doing a fantastic job of avoiding. Because it would’ve cost me significant amounts of money to take the day off and wait for BT to chuff about investigating. Besides, while the weather’s been fine it hasn’t been that much of a problem.
So I’d postponed the appointment, BT had promised to make it again – and hadn’t. Quelle surprise.
Last week it got worse again – ‘coincidentally’ after it had pissed down with rain – so I got back on to BT. We went through all the rigmarole again, including dealing with similar levels of understanding (or lack thereof) from the first-level support people. It amazes me just how effing dumb their script is, and how incapable they are of deviating from it when they’ve already been given the relevant information.
Still, one conversation with the supervisor/manager later we got progress, and my line being monitored (again) for 24 hours by second-line support.
They’ve called today, and confirmed that (yet again) my line is shit. This time, because I’m working from home, there’s an engineer coming out on Thursday to fix it. There’s still been all the bollocks about “If it’s a fault inside the house you’re liable for it”, but I’m pretty damn sure it’ll turn out to be an external issue. Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough.
And after that I suspect I shall be having words with them about why it’s taken five months to fix a problem that (I predict) required no access at all to my house.
Parking Mad
Posted: Thu 24 April, 2014 Filed under: 1BEM, Commuting, Customer Services, Cynicism, Driving, Parking, People, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »At the moment, the BBC has a documentary series on about Traffic Wardens (Parking Agents, Collection Agents, whatever else you want to call them) called “Parking Mad” and it’s been pretty interesting.
What I find most interesting is the people who don’t pay their parking fines, then get all snotty and sweary about it when the costs for it go up and up.
No matter how paranoid you are, I think the great majority of parking wardens just give tickets to people who’ve overstayed their tickets, not bothered, or are parking like cunts in the first place. I’ve spoken to a fair few over the years (I’m a twat for talking to just about anyone) and haven’t ever really come across a bad one. I’m sure they exist, don’t get me wrong – I just don’t believe every one is a bastard, or hates every other driver.
So if you’ve got a ticket- and again I emphasise that this is In My Experience Only – the odds are that you’ve fucked up and done something wrong. The ticket is going to cost you £30 to pay in the next 28 days, or £60 after that (and with extra costs the more they have to do to recover it) – so just sodding pay it. It’s a fee for fucking up.
I think I’ve now had four parking tickets. Two in Cambridge (where I’d be the first to admit that I pushed my luck anyway, and/or forgot to renew the ticket at the end of its duration) and two in London when I was commuting, and had a brain-fart about paying the ticket. The London ones were a pain, because you couldn’t buy the ticket before 9am- not from the machine, not online. I *know* it was a plan to get more people to forget to pay it, and thus do the tickets. But in six months, I forgot a grand total of twice.
I just don’t get the point of not paying a ticket – you know you’re going to lose anyway, so you might as well get it paid while it’s cheap. Even if I were going to protest it, I’d pay while lodging the appeal. (Unless it’s better to not do so – I don’t know, never had to do it)
The programme seems to specialise in these ball-bags who park like twats, make a mistake, and then blame everyone but themselves. Of course, they don’t pay, and then bitch even more when the bailiffs come round (or stop them in the road) and charge £500 for what could’ve been dealt with for £30.
I’ve said many times that there’s whole heaps of stuff about people that I simply don’t get. Parking tickets are just one more facet of that lack of knowledge/understanding.
Notebooks
Posted: Tue 8 April, 2014 Filed under: Customer Services, Design, Domestic, Geeky, Reviews(ish), Stationery, Thoughts, Work-related 2 Comments »
One of my loves is – as sad as it sounds – stationery. Pens, Inks, and particularly note-pads of various types. I use them a lot in my work, taking notes, keeping track of ideas and projects. Well, that’s how I justify things, anyway.
Recently I’ve been getting savage temptations from a company called Bureau Direct, who have a huge range of everything I love using. I’ve been impressed by their service, their range, and the speed and efficiency of their service. Sadly, their weekly promotional email is like temptation itself.
The most recent addition to my collection arrived over the weekend – a pack of three limited-edition “Field Notes” notebooks called “Shelterwood“.
They’ve managed to get a fine layer of American Cherry wood as the cover – I have *no* idea how they’ve managed it, but they have. The covers are still flexible, but they’re a razor-thin laminate of ‘proper wood’. Naturally, all the covers are different (as you’d expect from wood) and they’re ace. The books aren’t as big as I’d thought they might be – about A6, I’d guess – but that’s fine, and makes them different from my normal notepad-size too.
It turns out that Field Notes do these limited editions on a regular basis – I suspect I may end up with more…
Skyline
Posted: Sun 16 March, 2014 Filed under: Central Bedfordshire Council, Domestic, Driving, Green Leave a comment »Last week, there was a new addition to the skyline at home – and for a fair dollop of the surrounding area.
It’s obviously been planned for a while, but it’s really only been in the last month that I’ve seen a new wind turbine being erected at the Forestry Centre. It went up mid-February, but the turbine blades were only added last week, which is when it became truly noticeable. (There are chimney stacks around the place, so the initial turbine stalk didn’t stand out as much)
And now it’s visible – for quite a distance. I can see it as I come in past Bedford, and also as I come over the hill in the other direction. It’s pretty impressive.
Fortunately, I like wind turbines – I like the sight of them, and the sound. But I’m willing to bet there’s some NIMBY bastards who’ll complain about it.