My favourite times of day

11.11
13.37
23.11 (11.11 but in the dark)

something draws my eye to the clock at this time, I have no idea why.

That ain't customer service

Today's tale of asshattery comes from Tesco's.

We're carless (not careless!) so we often arrange for grocery deliveries online. We booked in our christmas shopping delivery nearly a fortnight ago for this evening - a 7pm till 9pm slot. Assuming that they wouldn't turn up (because of the weather, slippy roads and other general slackness) we rang them up today at lunchtime.

"Of course we'll be delivering - in fact we're loading your food onto the van right now!"

did they turn up?

No. no they didn't.

But of course, they'll arrange for our delivery tomorrow, because we're ... well, one would assume that we're now a priority delivery, right? I mean, we've just had our order cancelled even though we checked that it was coming not 6 hours beforehand?

No. the best they can do is Tuesday (no good, we're out) meaning the earliest slot we can make is Wednesday.

Anyone care to bet on whether they'll actually turn up on Wednesday? because I'm assuming that they won't.

I understand that it's cold out. I understand that the weather is bad. That is why we rang up. If they'd had the decency to tell us that they were not going to deliver - If I had known that they wouldn't arrive - instead of helping the neighbours clear out the road (so that the van would have no problems getting to our house) I would have walked to the local Sainsbury's and got at least enough food to see us through till Christmas. It's an hour walk, but I had all day to do it.

Speaking to their customer service was the usual fruitless persuit. Sugary words and a "oh, well, terribly sorry" attitude do not help me. I need the items that I ordered, that is the only thing that matters to me. I don't want to hear apologies or platitudes, I want to hear how I will be the first customer in the queue to have my order satisfied, in preference to anyone who placed their order after me.

After spending 15 minutes getting more and more irate, my wife took over the call, and decided that we would rebook for Wednesday the 23rd. I'm probably going to get the shopping after work each evening for the next few evenings anyway, but we assumed that it couldn't hurt to take a Wednesday slot. Right? Right?

So, this is what we get greeted with when we check the delivery slot time.

First off, the time slot is Tuesday 5th of January. Nice!

Next, we see that the order is 30 pounds more expensive than the original order we placed a week or two back. So, we decide to take a stroll down basket lane, and spot that some of the fresh produce prices are a wee bit inflated.

That's right - 7 parsnips, £10.92. 3 Leeks, 5.94. And you really don't want to know how much the bananas and carrots cost.


Needs more polish, Tesco. Not shiny.

Ikea Jenga

After moving house, my wife and I have made strident efforts to throw away the mountain of crap that we've accumulated with our consumerist ways over the last couple of years. The mountain is still huge, but boy, you shoulda seen it when we moved last time.

While the floor plans say otherwise, I'm convinced this new house is significantly smaller than our old place overlooking the sea, and there was no storage in the house when we moved in, so a trip to Ikea was required to furnish our new gaff. Being the type who likes efficiency, we planned to do the whole house in one trip - wardrobes, bookcases, computer desks, chests of drawers, DVD racks and a few other bits and bobs. Basically, enough boxes to fill half a transit van.

So, now we have a house half full of boxes of stuff, and half-full of boxes containing boxes that will contain the stuff from the boxes once I unbox and construct them. I now have some wierd matroska box situation going on where the only way I can make space to make the furniture is to stack boxes inside boxes, and carefully slide stacks of boxes from one place to another. It may sound like a fun game, but Ikea Jenga is going to kill me at some point when I get crushed to death by a load of old CDs.

Hopefully by the end of today, I'll have everything unboxed and constructed, and we can start putting our clothes and books somewhere where they will comfortably live until the next time we move.

Sir Valence

It's quite incredible, the bond between our ruling elite and the media conglomerates. It's almost a chemical attraction. One has to wonder just how far you will let them go.

Finally, some MSM attention is being directed at the upcoming surveillance society that we're all being pushed towards. Virgin Media have announced publicly that they are going to inspect everyone's internet traffic in an effort to identify "unlawful file sharing".

Just to be clear, this means that if you're a Virgin customer, you're now paying to be spied upon by your ISP, and they have just given up any pretense of common carrier status. I'm sure other large ISPs will be next. Even if you are totally innocent and have never even considered file sharing, your traffic is being explicitly monitored.

Doesn't that make you feel all safe and warm inside?

Given that someone has stated that certain types of file sharing are unlawful (certainly not me or the majority of my peers, but someone somewhere) one has to wonder, what is the next thing they will determine is unlawful? How much money does one have to pay to move an activity (copying a file) from unlawful (I got this file from site A) to lawful (I got this file from site B)? What about "I already own this album, so I'll listen to it" (legal), back it up (dubious), download it from some website (illegal), or a torrent (here they come to disconnect your family internet connection).

The time has come to make a stand, and I'm standing up.

I will not purchase any more media that has been RIAA or MPAA or BPI certified. I will not vote for any candidate that believes these people have a right to dictate how my internet connection is used.

Make your voice and your wallet count. Join me.

To be, or not to be

My current internet provider is Be Internet. They're not super-cheap, but they're not insanely expensive either. I've been with them for nearly four years now, and they're bloody brilliant. This endorsement does not come with any kickbacks from them, although if you are persuaded then I'll be happy to formally introduce you.

The reason I raise this is because they've been in the tiny minority of people who, while moving house over the last month, have promised and then delivered. They gave me a date for connection, they connected me on that date, they sent me an email saying I was working, I plugged in my modem and I had a connection. Hallelujah.

Bloodsucking

A big shout goes out to the owners of the open wireless access point somewhere in my vicinity. You've allowed me net access where Vodafone failed.

Given the near-magical turnaround on my land line, I've got high hopes that we'll be able to get a proper connection to the interwebs up next week, potentially even for my birthday. That would be a fantastic outcome. In the meantime, I'll undoubtedly make use of the local access point for some light surfing and email. Given that it's someone else's connection, I'll endeavour to keep the traffic low.

One may wonder if this activity is legal, and my current take is that it is - barely. Security of wireless systems is taken seriously by every third party provider in the country now. Every other access point in the area which is in a default configuration is locked down. This leads me to believe that anyone who has an open wireless access point has done so deliberately with the intention of being a good Samaritan for folks like myself. I intend to do the same when my network connection arrives, although I'll undoubtedly try and put in place some traffic shaping so that MACs which are unknown get a small slice of the available pie. Given that access is therefore implicitly granted, I'm not in contravention of the aforementioned act.

One has to wonder how society will react in future as connection to the Internet becomes more (and eventually, totally) pervasive. Being without a connection, even for a day, disrupts my usual routines - I'm unable to look anything up online, place food orders, check email. All of these things that are now comfortably second nature (not rationed, not carefully doled out) become glaring issues. I'm sure the same could be said of phone access over the last few decades, although that's mitigated somewhat with mobile phone access. I've purchased a 3G dongle to ensure that we have some form of connection across the 5 computers in the house, but when that fails to find a network we're back at square one. At least we can fall back to dial up now that the phone line is in place.

My child will be part of the first generation born where the Internet isn't just there - it's everywhere. How cool will that be?

BT phone home

I'm rarely in a position where the effort of a large corporation surprises me. I've had situations with various companies in the past where I've been left thinking, "Is this really how you treat your customers? Is everyone going through the same pain and problems using your service? remind me again what I'm paying you for?"

Today, the big corporation finally bit back. BT have connected me up to the phone network in a little over a week from my first request, and a little over two days from where my ire was noticed. This is nearly a fortnight faster than the previous date I was given. To say I'm gobsmacked would be an understatement, and I'm thoroughly impressed with their customer service.

As a technically savvy bloke, I'm probably more aware than most of what's actually required to connect up a phone line and transfer a number around. At the end of the day though, I really shouldn't care - all I want is to be able to pick up my phone and hear a dial tone, and I can do that now.

Big thanks to David and Colin, and to the BT engineer who arrived on my doorstep at precisely 8am this morning. Good work, fellas.