Goan, goan, gone

A very confusing Tuesday morning. My brain was expecting this... ...but it got this... ...because I'm in Goa. I am at some sort of backpackers hostel, but it's alright for a couple of days.

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Sunset at Silverstone

Lovely. And here's what it looked like when I was pottering around the pit lane and suddenly remembered that my mobile phone can take videos (it took me a while to figure out how, so I only got a short clip).

Wood Lane

Exciting scenes as I arrive at BBC Television Centre for an unspecified reason. I didn't see anyone famous in the canteen though, which was a bit upsetting as I was hoping to get something good to sell to the tabloids (someone using the wrong glass for the port, for example).

Auld Reekie

Yes, I'm in Edinburgh. After Frankfurt and Milan last week, I'm in Edinburgh for a couple of days, and very pleasant it has been, except for the view from my hotel, which appears to be almost entirely taken up by lap-dancing clubs. I imagine they do a different version up here, more in keeping with the traditional Scottish reel, but I can honestly say that I haven't been tempted to find out.

Woking station

What a joke. 25 minutes to get on a train. The queue was out of the ticket office and down the street on the other side as well -- I know because I wasted my time going over there -- and, as usual, they wouldn't let you through the barrier to pay on the train.

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Is there nothing Google can't do?

I've been driven up the wall by British gas over recent months. A quick summary of events: 1. They sent me incorrect bills. In the case of the gas bill, it had the wrong tariff and did not include a credit of £129. In the case of the electricity bill, it had the wrong tariff. 2. I called on 10th July. They said that there was a computer problem, confirmed that the tariffs had been set up incorrectly, and said it would be sort out and they would send a revised bill. 3. No revised bills arrived. They sent me a reminder. 4. I called. I went through the whole thing again and was told again that it would be taken care of. 5. No revised bills arrived. They sent me a rather insulting “red reminder”. 6. I called again and they assured me that no further threatening letters would be sent and that the matter would be resolved. They asked me to send a copy of the tariffs (apparently they don't know what they are) to their amusingly entitled “Customer Care Team”, which I did. 7 I (stupidly, in retrospect) posted a letter with the tariffs enclosed. 8. No revised bills were received, of course, a few days ago I came home to find notices of disconnection. 9. I called their ridiculous customer “service” number, only to be told that (as usual) all of the representatives were busy and that I would have to wait 30 minutes (at my own expense) to speak to someone. Since I had no alternative but to tolerate this appalling state of affairs, I had no choice but to sit with a phone against my ear—when I had considerably better things to do—for 59 minutes. Correct: I waited 1 hour to talk to a customer “service” representative, who said that he couldn’t hear me properly because of a bad line but would call me back right away. Which, naturally, he did not. 10. I called back and spoke to someone who said that there was nothing she could do but have a manager call me back in the morning. Naturally, they didn't call. 11. I called back to get a fax number os that I could send a letter detailing the problems together with (another) copy of the tariffs. They gave me a fax number which of course turned out to be incorrect. 12. I called back next morning and and a woman told me that my account was not on the right tariff (which I knew), that the letter I had sent would take at least a month to process, and that she could not stop the disconnection process. 13. I asked her to transfer me to the debt department, where the phone rang continuously for several minutes without being picked up. 14. I called back and spoke to someone who gave me another fax number which, like many of the other British Gas numbers, is never answered. At this point, I decided that I was wasting my time calling "Customer Service" and that since my electricity and gas were going to be cut off I'd better do something. I turned to the mightiest weapon in any modern person's armoury... Google. Bif! I googled and found that customer services are based in Manchester. I called directory enquiries and got the number. That got me through to a reception desk. The person on the desk said that there were no fax machines in the customer service department. I said that I had an important letter to get through to them and the person on the desk gave me the e-mail address of someone in the department. Bam! The address was in a particular format x.y@x.com so I googled "head of customer services" and go straight through to a page with the relevant clown featured GETTING AN AWARD FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE!! I guessed (correctly) the e-mail address and I sent the contents of the letter as an e-mail. Pow! Since the e-mail didn't bounce, I knew I was on to something. I googled the name on the bottom of the letter threatening to disconnect me and deduced the e-mail address. I send an e-mail with the same complaints (and slightly more invective). Blam! Within a few minutes I had a call back from a nice lady who sorted out the problem. Moral of this story: if one of the faceless and unaccountable fat cats discovers a message in their inbox, they will get someone to do something about it. Don't waste your time calling their disgraceful customer "service" number.

Helping GSE

The Great She Elephant has a questionnaire on blogging and public relations, so if you have a few minutes could you pop over and help her out with it. Thanks.

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