Talk talk turds

I woke up this morning and was immediately thrown into the fiery hell of having to deal with Talk Talk, our Internet providers, who, of late, have stopped providing us with our Internet. 

The situation has been getting progressively worse; it used to be that we'd suddenly drop offline half way through our favourite show on iplayer, but the day before we went to Italy, the broadband stopped working altogether and it hasn't yet come back to us. 

At ten o'clock this morning, therefore, I found myself talking to call centres, first in Manilla, then in Mumbai, slowly losing the will to live, primarily because every time someone went off to "check" something and promised to call me back, they'd do no such thing. An hour later, I'd call back to discover whoever I was talking to before hadn't made any notes about my call, and we'd be forced to start everything again. One bloke had me on all fours taking a screwdriver to my rooter!

I'm afraid I hate foreign call centres, not because I'm racist, but because those who work in them have very little concept of what it means to be British, which, when you're stressed, can tip you over the edge. They speak, on the whole, fairly  good English, but there are few shared values and little (much-needed) understanding of the geography, humour or basic set up of our nation. One chap today, for example, kept telling me (because the Talk Talk people couldn't come in person to fix the problem for a week) that I could try "getting a local technician to come to the house." "What kind of technician?" I asked, "an Internet technician" he said, "where will I find one of them?" I asked. Silence. Then more crappy guitar music on a two-minute loop, whilst he put me on hold to find out... 

When the conversation went into its third cycle I demanded to speak to someone in the UK - a request which, bizarrely, was granted. The relief was extraordinary. Finally I was talking to a person who could list the various shops where I could buy replacement parts, and tell me the prices I ought to expect to pay for them. It shouldn't have made a difference, but it did. He even sympathised when I complained about the music. " I don't mind muzak" I said, "but when the muzak loops after two minutes, and goes back to the start again, it's like descending into hell in a never-ending lift... The only thing which is worse than muzak, is muzak which doesn't have the decency to end!" He laughed and understood and the anger drifted away...

If anyone high up in a multi-national company finds themselves reading this blog, I make one plea; however expensive it proves to be, please bring the service industry back to the UK. 

350 years ago, Pepys heard on the grapevine that Sir William Penn was returning to London from Ireland. This was bad news for two reasons; firstly, Pepys didn't care much for Penn, and secondly, because his adversary was away, Pepys had started squatting in Penn's house - with piles of his possessions - whilst his own house was being renovated. 

All of this meant that Pepys had to find himself alternative lodgings, which he did, on Tower Hill. His maid, Jane, was sent to Penn's house to "sleep with" Pepys' belongings, and no doubt explain to Penn, when he arrived, what on earth had happened to his house whilst he was away. 

Still, the good news was that Pepys did his end of month accounts and found himself to be worth 686 pounds. His new oaths were working; he was making, and saving money, and was well on the way to making his first thousand - a figure you can probably times by at least 100 in modern parlance - all kept in silver pieces in a metal chest! These were the days before banks, remember...