A Misleading Provider, Olympic Predictions & A Fond Farewell

A pretty stressful week so far which has been dominated by a red reminder from our new electricity provider for the princely sum of £900. This was actually the first notification of any kind that we owed the money and following a call to them querying the amount where I was asked to provide a meter reading, we then received a revised bill for the ludicrous figure of £1,047!
I probably covered this some time ago, but we decided to switch to NPower due to EOn's inability to distinguish me at my address from my father at a completely different address. This persisted for some time and they managed to confuse the two accounts causing enormous stress. They weren't at all interested in retaining us as a customer so we jumped ship to NPower having been promised by them that they would provide a better service with lower monthly bills. How wrong we were, and instead of realistic charges, we were charged double. What's more, they didn't choose to inform us of these charges until now.
So following another stressful phone call yesterday by me (as the account is in my name), it has been agreed that we get moved to a lower tariff and the debt be added to the monthly payment in manageable amounts. Why they didn't put us onto a lower tariff right at the start I do not know. One thing's for sure though, they will be getting a letter of complaint next week, and if we aren't compensated I'll event be writing to the Ombudsman as this has to be tantamount to mis-selling. NPower... not a good advertisement for you, is it?

As we edge closer to the biggest event this country will ever hold, there are mounting concerns over security provision, traffic and transport concerns and the placing of missile systems in residential areas of London. I find it very had to accept any notion or guarantee that the event will pass without incident. I doubt very much whether anyone will attempt to disrupt the games purposely - I suspect our defences will be one of the few things we would have got right. Instead, I suspect that the event will fall foul to at least one of the following (assuming the weather doesn't ruin the whole thing)...

• Traffic congestion  & gridlocked roads.
• Overloaded public transport system and overcrowded stations.
• Failure of mobile phone networks due to overloading.
• Overloading of Internet services.
• Overcrowding and delays at airports.
• Flooding of road and rail routes affecting transit.

I don't wish to be pessimistic, but I really believe that the impact on our already stretched infrastructure have been hugely underestimated. I wonder how many of these I will be ticking?

Yesterday we held our first A&D Support Group meeting at our new venue, the IVO Centre in Spalding. I hadn't been there before and did have trouble locating it at first (due mainly to an upside-down map), but I was very impressed when I finally arrived. The facilities are excellent and we were able to spent the duration of our time there in the garden, a bonus considering the diabolical weather we have been suffering.
I have a feeling over time that our regular venue at the hospital will fall out of favour and that the preference will be to meet at our new venue. There was certainly a general view that we could all 'be ourselves' and not feel slightly intimidated and restrained by our use of NHS premises. In summary, it went well, very well and the atmosphere was a complete contrast to what we have been used to. The group was relaxed, at ease and unencumbered by their surroundings. I look forward to our future meetings there.

It's difficult to believe that the school Summer holiday period is to begin in a week's time. All over the country arrangements are being made for the six week period and many will be taking time off from work for breaks by the sea or at activity or caravan parks. A very lucky few will be off to foreign shores escaping our wet British Summer and the Olympics.

Many parents of school-age children received letters from Lincolnshire NHS this week explaining where their children sit on the Body Mass Index Scale designed to separate the fit from the Obese. We received one of these letters for our son. He scored 99 which places him at the 'Clinically Obese' level. There is nothing of him. OK, he has a little puppy fat, but that's all. He eats a balanced diet and he is healthy. I really don't think letters like this serve any real use other than to turn people against the government led 'nanny state' that is pervading more and more of our lives. Obesity needs to be tacked at source, namely the food industry. Allowing McDonald's and Coke to be major sponsors of the Olympic Games says everything about our government's commitment to tackling obesity.

Finally, it was so sad to hear that Eric Sykes had passed away this week. I'll always remember with fondness his gentle humour and unique talents, much of which is recorded for future generations to appreciate and enjoy as much as I have. Rest In Peace.

A Little Job & Olympic Worries

I've had a couple of small jobs come my way this week. A work colleague of my mum-in-law has a laptop with a faulty keyboard. It's a strange one this, as all the keys work except for J,K and L. I've taken the keyboard out and taken a closer look but unlike laptops of old, there is literally nothing that's serviceable. They keys do come off, but that's it apart from the contact sheet underneath. So I've recommended a replacement which to my surprise will cost just £25 to procure. Computer spares must be the only things that have actually decreased in price over the years. The same customer has a tower unit which 'blue screens' on starting which could frankly be a number of different things so I'll be taking a look at it once the laptop is repaired.
So that's all very good. I do love fixing things especially computers and if I can earn a little by doing it, then happy days.

Weather, oh weather. It has been nothing short of horrible for the last two weeks. It all came to a peak last night when we had very heavy rain and strong winds, which persisted well into today and have only really eased in the last hour or so. There are flood warnings almost everywhere at the moment and there are rivers where their banks have already burst, such as in York. Yet we are told we still have a drought. So why not try to collect some of this water, the same way I am in my garden, but on an industrial scale?

In the news we've had the Leveson Inquiry and the furore surrounding the Culture, Media and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt. I've certainly been glued to the coverage surrounding this and I firmly believe that there remain many questions to be answered and I believe there are rough times ahead for the current government. I could spend an hour or more writing about my thoughts on this subject, but I won't. Suffice to say that I believe not one word of what we are told by our government or Mr Murdoch, regardless of how plausible their explanations and excuses may seem. They may think we were all born yesterday but I for one am not going to be taken in by it, not a single word of it.

Twitter. I've written on numerous occasions regarding the power of Twitter and its influence on our society is clear given the media coverage it has received lately. Admittedly, the coverage has been for the wrong reasons and unfortunately, it is all too often used as a weapon to offend or humiliate.
But I do see it very much as a tool for making comment and observation, and on many occasions over the last week, I have received replies and even had my tweets read out on radio. I already have over 100 followers, to my surprise and how many of these read my tweets, I do not know. But the fact that my tweets regarding electricity providers were picked up by Eon and NPower and my tweet regarding the mis-treatment of Christopher Tappin was read out on-air by LBC, it does make me feel good about using this relatively new medium. What started out just a couple of years ago as an Internet SMS service has grown into perhaps the most powerful tool of communication and opinion in the World today.

No week would be complete without a crisis and this time it was a flat tyre. I had spotted it just before my wife was due to leave for work. Of course it was all too much for her but we managed to get someone to come and collect her. I managed to get some air into the tyre and drove gingerly to the local garage. Within half an hour they had located the puncture and repaired it. Wonderful, and all for just £20. A huge relief given the fact I was expecting to pay £40 for a new tyre. So a major crisis was averted thank goodness.

There is concern at the moment regarding the ability of our immigration control services to cope come the Olympics and the predicted hundreds of thousands of extra visitors. This has arisen after complaints by entering passengers who had to queue for up to 3 hours at Heathrow. Mobile phone footage showed long queues of disgruntled passengers and I can't help but imagine the scene in three months from now when Olympic devotees begin descending on the capital.
We are being assured that the airports are prepared for the influx, buy haven't we heard all thins before? Do they really know how many people are expected? I doubt it. I fully expect to see huge queues at our airports, caused in part by delays in processing passports and in the inability of our transport system to transfer the masses to the Olympic site.
Somewhat amazingly, there is discussion at the moment regarding the siting of ground to air missiles and the surreal suggestion to place missile batteries on top of apartment blocks and other tall buildings. We are being assured a complete no fly zone will be enforced over London during the Games, but mistakes do happen and I could easily see a situation where a plane or other airborne object could stray and a missile be launched in response. The results of this would be catastrophic for anyone below.
And of course there's the hoaxer and the chaos that would ensue following any warning deemed credible.
Of course, there's every possibility the whole thing will pass without incident, and I hope it does. But I do have serious doubts as to whether the current infrastructure will cope under the additional strain and I seriously doubt our preparedness. Time will of course tell.