Only Good Things Come in Threes?

This is a tale of woe. It is not without its humour, from a certain point of view, but mainly it struggles to be even ironic. Bear with me.

It all began, I suppose, a year or two back when The Wife broke the kitchen. The fitted units are laminated and over the years the cooker hood cover has begun to peel away from its carcass. As it became worse, it also became apparent that the kitchen would have to be replaced sooner or later, but because of the expense I wanted to delay the event for as long as possible. The Wife then had a mishap with a cupboard door, resulting in a large(ish) bubble of the laminate which burst, revealing the wood beneath and really sealing the kitchen's fate, but still I prevaricated. Then the dishwasher packed up and I found that it was cheaper to replace it than to fix it. The Wife pounced like a Cheshire cat, all smiles and ingratiating, mysterious ways, dragging me off to local kitchen designers. At this point I discovered that she had been seriously planning a new kitchen with sketches, researched appliances and everything! I capitulated and the new kitchen is to be installed during August.

In order to pay for the new kitchen I need to liquidate some investments, so made an appointment with my financial adviser for a particular Friday morning. Friday is the day when we do our weekly shop. Since the event is a bit of a chore, we try to soften the boredom by having breakfast at the supermarket beforehand, and did so on the appointment day, planning to arrive home a good 40 minutes before Mr Adviser. Within half a mile of the house there is a right-turn. Positioned in the middle of the road awaiting oncoming traffic to clear, the car's master cylinder burst its seals so that I cold no longer select gear and the car was immovable. Fortunately a very kind man in a sports car stopped and he, together with a couple of passing postmen pushed the car onto the grass verge. While I waited for the local garage to turn out, The Wife had to hotfoot it to the house to keep the appointment, arriving simultaneously with The Adviser. The situation was explained and he valiantly offered to collect me (and the weekly shopping) from the garage before getting down to the purpose of the appointment. That was 5 weeks ago.

A symptom of the master cylinder failure was the virtual disappearance of the clutch pedal (in fact it was flat to the floor but higher than I could see from the driver's seat.) So when the symptom reappeared, this time at home, I called the garage expecting to pay for the tow and to have the master cylinder replaced under warranty. I needn't have worried, the situation was a lot worse than that! Diagnosis revealed that the car manufacturer had installed in this model a rubberized flywheel assembly. Mine had begun to break up, and although it was possible to reset the mechanism by pulling the clutch pedal upwards, nothing was going to last long. Reluctantly, and after much thought I gave the OK for the work to be done. They've now had the car for three days!

On day two another disaster struck.Our aged, trusted, taken-for-granted washing machine ground to a halt. Not only that but in the process it has managed to coat everything within in tiny white flecks (as though from a tissue left inadvertently in a pocket) of some material which is clearly not paper. We now have underwear and T-shirts prettily polka-dotted. The rotating drum which is the soul of such machines now doesn't rotate, and is not even suspended within its housing. Repair is unlikely, and anyway the machine owes us nothing. So this morning, and using The Wife's ancient car, we trundled forth to buy a new washing machine. Surely to God nothing else can go wrong, Can it?

A Worthwhile Outing

For many years I have eschewed guided tours. Whether on holiday, at a stately home, or other places of interest I have always chosen to find my own way, albeit with the help of a guidebook; after all, anything of interest is in the guidebook, right? History, family, acquisitions, artifacts et al. Right?

Recently The Wife and I visited Basildon House in Berkshire. Since we were slightly early for the official opening time and a guided tour was imminent, we decided to avail ourselves of the opportunity. Our guide was (I would guess) a retired military gentleman whose knowledge of the house, its history, and of the various artifacts within was encyclopedic.

Built in the 1780's for a wealthy man of the East India Company it has had something of a chequered history, and passed down through the family which lent its name to the villain of Oliver Twist. Latterly it was used as a hospital for officers (of course) of the Guards regiments in the first world war, and was again requisitioned as a headquarters for the 101st Airborne (the band of brothers) in WW2. By the time the war ended the building was in a sorry state. The contents had been sold, pilfered, or otherwise disposed of, there was graffiti, and even the door cases and plaster-work was missing. The grounds were overgrown and the house looked ready for demolition.                    

Taxes on large properties at the end of the war were prohibitive. The Labour government needed money to house those who had been rendered homeless by the war as well as those returning from the continent, and large house owners were made to pay their share. Thus the house was sold for development. The wife of a neighbouring property owner came over to see Basildon House at this time and flippantly said that the house should be restored. She was playfully challenged by her companion to do so. Since the plans for demolition and redevelopment of the site had stalled, Lady Iliffe became the (not so proud) owner.

Over many years, and with very deep pockets and not a little luck the house was lovingly restored to the homely grandeur that we see today. It would be easy to live in it, unlike some stately homes which despite everyone's efforts remain remote and aloof. I applaud the efforts of Lady Iliffe and those of the National Trust in presenting this house as a national treasure. I am also a convert to the idea of guided tours, I learned so much!

Library

Octagon Room

The Way Through the Woods

That knocked the Shine off

Recently I have celebrated a significant birthday; significant in the sense that it is the last of a decade, but numerically it looks like the first of the next, a bit like the millennium beginning not in 2000 but in 2001.

I was overwhelmed by one special gift in particular, a tablet computer from The Wife. I have for sometime been thinking of buying an iPad or similar and have done some research on the various alternatives available. I am no follower of fashion and just because Apple has the market leader in this field is not in itself, to me, a reason to buy their product however good. There are many similar products "out there" with different operating systems much praised by the IT industry. Anyway, this gift took my breath away. Bright, shiny and waiting to be caressed it sat in its box patiently while I investigated other gifts, all of them special and gratefully received. Eventually I turned on the machine to be greeted with the Android logo and The Wife's declaration that it was a robot! From then on this machine became my Robot e-Pad.

 

Then the fun began. At first the machine performed well and I was able to read e-mails, record appointments, obtain weather forecasts, read Twitter and Facebook, and choose e-books from Amazon. Once or twice during the first couple of days I received notifications that some background app or other had stopped, but I paid little attention since I was getting used to my new toy and its idiosyncracies.

 

On day three, I think it was, my Robot e-Pad failed to boot up. No amount of holding down the on/ off switch would induce life into the thing, and I was forced to use a pin in the reset hole, after which it booted fine and worked well, for a while. Now the fun really started. The operating system would stop, then a background app, then that bit which allows the transfer of info from the device to the web, my link to Amazon (pre-installed) refused to put me in the e-book store, depositing me in the registration screen instead. Since I was already registered it refused to recognise a re-registration and so I was stuck. I sent an e-mail to the manufacturer's support website address and received a one line answer that was of no help. Two other e-mails have remained unanswered. Warnings appeared on the screen and I was unable to clear them, a factory re-set restored the status quo ante for a while, then it all went pear-shaped again.

 

Now don't get me wrong, in between times things worked fine, but over a few days matters became increasingly worse so that with a very heavy heart I had to ask The Wife to send it back. I was devastated. My Robot e-Pad had been in my possession for just over 2 weeks. Much thought had gone into the purchase of this present, which is something that I really (if I'm honest) coveted, and here I was rejecting it. I felt awful for The Wife, even though it wasn't my fault.

 

Sometime ago I posted a piece on Customer Service. To anyone who has read that it will come as no surprise that the monster raised its head above the parapet again this time.

 

                 

 

Argument ensued between The Wife and the call centre who seemed to think that the machine not working as it should was

                                                   a) my fault

                                                   b) not their problem

 

Eventually they promised to collect the item (which they just have) and to refund the money. In the meantime The Wife is out of pocket, I have no tablet, and the company has no chance of a repeat customer. I hasten to add that this episode does not in any way reflect upon Android or their products, simply upon the particular company which supplied this machine. I am now actively continuing my research into the various tablets on the market, Apple, Android, Windows et al, but purchase will have to wait for the refund. Hopefully my next post on this subject will have a happier ending.

Norway, and other shocks

Well we've been back about two weeks now. The journey both to and from was uneventful and much easier from Gatwick than from Heathrow. For starters I can drive there, whereas the approaches to Heathrow are, for me, a nightmare. Second, the car parking is cheaper, even with a collection service, and third the journey is largely rural, not the urban sprawl of London. Norwegian Airlines was not noticeably different from SAS, and the prices are much the same, so it looks like Gatwick and Norwegian from now on.

                                      
                                    

On arrival on Thursday evening we were met by the whole family! We felt like celebrities, and it was lovely. Arrangements were well in-hand for the Saturday confirmation of Marie, and I was pleased to see that there was plenty of cake. We met Abigail Elisabeth for the first time and she made a huge impression on both of us. The Wife even got to hold her, for a while!
                                     

                                                                

 On Friday we were left more or less to our own devices after breakfast, after all there was work to be done! Kjell accompanied us to the local shops since he had to visit the bank, and we managed to lose him in the classic scenario of the shop with two entrances on different streets! Just like Laurel & Hardy. We had to have coffee and cake to recover.

Saturday dawned fine and bright. The ladies of the house were all in their National Costume and at the appointed time we set off for the church, a few kilometers away. The church is timber-built and quite old. There has been a church on the site for about 900 years. Inside, as in all Norwegian churches I'm told, a model of a galleon hangs from the ceiling. This I assume to be symbolic of the Christian ministry in some way. In this church the pews extended into the South transept where there was a large TV screen so that occupants could see what was going on. Many ladies were in traditional costume, and the atmosphere was friendly, noisy, and somehow convivial.

When the confirmation celebrants appeared from the rear of the church they were in procession behind the minister, and white floor-length surplices covered their clothes. It was actually quite a moving sight. After a hymn or two, for which the congregation remained seated, the choir sang from the gallery. They were impressive with their descant and their harmonies, and had obviously been well schooled. Speeches (homilies?) were made by the minister and his assistant and then the business of calling forward one by one the individuals to be confirmed. Each stepped up to the altar in response to their name, was blessed, and received their insignia. As each returned to their seat a candle was lit for them. The ceremony concluded with more singing. A very different (and shorter!) ceremony from the Humanist rituals we have witnessed before. Marie looked radiant.

 

 

On the following Tuesday The Wife and I were invited by one of Kjell & Greta's friends to go fishing. This meant borrowing warm clothing, driving some 30 Km out of Bodø to the friend's boat, being rowed from the shore to the fishing boat and transferring from one to the other on a choppy sea before even the fishing trip could begin. All went well except that yours truly was ill and largely missed the main event! Nevertheless a number of coley were caught and later eaten, having been steamed at their (Tora & Fritz Arne's) nearby house. I'm told they were delicious!! Mind you, the fishing boat nearly got away. Wind and current combined in that part of the fiord to drift the boat way over to the other side. Poor old Fritz Arne had to row like the very devil after it. If ever a man earned his fish supper, it was him that night.
All in it was an enjoyable visit, and we have been invited back, so we must be doing something right!

 

Birthdays come but once a year, and for those of us older people that maybe a blessing! Perhaps there is an age when it is better to shrug off the annual reminder of the slow march to inevitability, and of course for children it is all about presents and cake, but there remains that huge time period between faded excitement and dread of another year's milestone. Some people still seem to get excited about birthdays, usually someone else's, and some use it as an excuse for excess. Some use the excuse for a "knees-up" or family party, and some for reflection. Laudable though some, at least, of these ideals are I'm sure that the vast majority of people have birthdays that simply happen because time passes.

In this family we have a mixture of attitudes from the mildly excited through resignation to indifference, except for notable anniversaries. Just a week-end or two ago we had a family gathering to celebrate a birthday which as birthdays go is nondescript, but was honoured because the celebrant is The Daughter. It has become something of a habit in this family to offer the birthday guy or gal the choice of a meal in celebration and this month's specialty was fish & chips, straight out of the paper! Being clement weather the repast was taken in the garden. There was, of course, cake and strawberries and raspberries and cream and beer!! Wait. I'm not supposed to be the one excited!!!

                             

Of course a happy time was had, I think by everyone. Even the International Space Station put in an appearance around 2130 to join in. We were also accompanied by two stray fire balloons and loud bangs from a neighbour's garden. Wow! Some birthday.

Before all that there was a moment of excitement earlier that morning. The Wife, putting up the window blind in the conservatory, spied what she thought was a grey squirrel on the bird feeder.  However, through the sleep-induced haze she could see a naked tail; it was a brown rat. A magnificent specimen too with fur that looked from that distance, like velvet. The bird feeder is on top of a slender metal spike stuck in the ground, and there is nothing near from which to jump, so he must have climbed. Agile little devils, ain't they?

We've been having some trouble with receiving BBC channels on television. It would be ok for a while, perhaps half an hour or so, and then go off showing "no signal" on the screen. Through Twitter I was able to enlist the help of a BT engineer. After eliminating obvious things like the aerial being unplugged they recommended a system re-boot for BT Vision, and that worked. Jolly handy having BT on Twitter for when you need them. Have you ever tried to get them on the phone?

                                         It's a nightmare!

We are going on holiday on Thursday, so being in need of foreign cash I thought I'd try the internet services. First it was a surprise that there was so much fluctuation in the exchange rates, and second that those rate were so much better than the high street. Anyway, I have ordered the cash and am awaiting its delivery on Wednesday. The anxiety is that I've cut it a bit fine and if Royal Mail let me down with their next-day delivery service I'm screwed! Here's hoping...

Every month a group of The Wife's friends meet for lunch, and the venue changes according to whim. Husbands are included in the invitation and for some time now there have been seven of us, all pensioners, terrifying local hostelries twelve or thirteen times a year. The gathering is convivial and we have a laugh, a drink and lunch. For the last twice one of our "members" has been unwell and unable to attend. Her husband, naturally, has felt unable to leave his sick wife and so we have been reduced to five in number. We wish our friend Pat a speedy return to health and to the monthly gathering.

I'm off to pack now. Excitement grows as the prospect of seeing a new granddaughter for the first time looms, but more of that another time TTFN

After the Interval...

Well, it has been a long time coming, this new post, so I'd better make it worthwhile.

The great news is that I have a new granddaughter, Abigail Elisabeth, born on the 7th of July 2012. I have not seen her yet, but in a matter of days I shall be able to gather her up, for real! We travel to Norway on the 23rd. Another early start and late finish will be the order of the day, but that is the way of the airline.

Speaking of which, when travelling to Norway on previous occasions we have used the Scandinavian national airline, SAS out of Heathrow. This time they had no seats available for the outward flight, only homeward, which was weird. However, there is another carrier, Norwegian, which uses Gatwick. It is apparently a budget airline, but the two flights are only a couple of hours each so what the hell? It means being at Gatwick around 7 am with a 4 or 5 hour stopover in Oslo and arriving in Bodø around 7 pm - a long day. We are looking forward to seeing everyone again, and particularly Abigail. I wonder what she'll think of my beard. Since her other grandpa has one, perhaps she'll think that all grandpas come with beards!

We have had so much rain this year (it's raining again as I write) that there are now so many jobs to do in the garden I fear that I cannot get to even the more urgent ones before the colder weather hits. More than this is the impact it may have on all of our lives. Some plants may drown, and some species of insects may not be able to reproduce effectively. Take butterflies and moths, for example, eggs maybe washed off the plants where they are habitually laid, or the caterpillars may get washed away, or their food plant not thrive in the wet. Eggs of other insects are at risk too, even those laid underground, from floodwater if not from the initial deluge. Then there is the problem farmers face. Even if their crops grow in unaccustomed conditions, the continual rain may have flattened them or prevented timely ripening which will affect the harvest. That will have an impact on food prices. And it's not just the UK, the changing weather conditions are being experienced world wide.

I am not an avid follower of sports, although I appreciate a well contested cricket match, or a boxing tournament, but I must say that the Olympics in London were outstanding.

Before the event kicked off there were plenty of doom-sayers predicting problems with transport, ticketing, accommodation, catering and more. I am delighted that during the two weeks of the games they were all proved wrong! From the Opening Ceremony the superb organisation and logistical expertise of the authorities was a joy to behold, simply by being invisible. There were few doping revelations, and those athletes who were foolish enough to indulge were quickly dispatched home, as were the oriental cheats. Of course the icing on the cake was that Team GB were superb, not only in achieving more medals than for more than 100 years, but in the dignity they showed in triumph and failure. All the athletes, from every country taking part deserve our praise and congratulations for the true Olympic spirit which they displayed in striving to be

   

And as for the British Olympic Committee and Lord Coe? Outstanding! I enjoyed every moment I watched, every triumph and disaster. As our Gold Medal winning boxer Nicola Adams memorably said, it made my day! Rio? HERE WE COME!!!!                                                                                           

Number One cat's health is, on the whole, very robust, but of late she has had a recurring sniffle which causes her to sneeze violently. The vet is aware and from time to time prescribes an antibiotic to prevent the infection settling on the cat's chest. She is also on tablets to treat an over-active thyroid, but remains in very good health with a good appetite. She plays, hunts, and sleeps like any other cat. Not bad for an age anywhere between 13 & 15 years. Anyway, we took her to the vet on Tuesday for the sniffle, and the waiting room was full of cats! One of them had been brought in by two young women as a stray that they had found around their stables. Two days previously the cat had approached them mewing, but they had simply acknowledged it and went about their business. The following day they saw it again.  It could hardly lift its head, was very emaciated, and vocal in the extreme (hoarse by this time) with distress. The vet's nurse established that the cat was micro-chipped, but although given 3 separate numbers by the chip register none of them was working. Additionally, the address for the chip was some 50 miles away! Seemingly moggy had been abandoned. People have such evil in them. Anyway, the vet took the animal which would receive treatment, and if it was found to be viable the two young women volunteered to give a good home to it. People have such good in them. I wish them and pussy a happy life together. I do hope the cat is OK

                                                                                                                               

 

Customer Service

Customer service in the UK seems to be akin to a dirty word. We have all, I'm sure, experienced the terse or casual direction to something wanted in the supermarket, or the seemingly ubiquitous excuse of "it's the computer" when querying a mistake. And have you ever tried telephoning a large company or a public utility? All you get is a series of options to push this or that button depending on the nature of your enquiry. BT must be among the worst for that, and they run a telephone company!

The last time I had cause to call out BT for a line fault I discovered as the engineer was leaving that he had actually made the situation worse. By the time I reached the door to call him back, it was just in time to see his van drive off. Eventually another engineer came a few days later, called the work done by his predecessor "rubbish" and proceeded to replace it. It took a third engineer and his supervisor, many days later, to trace the original fault to a broken extension cable which they replaced. I have had no trouble since, but why did it take them so long to find and to rectify the fault? In the event they decided that they would pay for the work as it was their faulty installation and fault locating which were to blame.

That is not the point. The original call was to report a faulty line. The first guy replaced the line from the street to the house. The second guy replaced the junction box where the extension line enters the house (he also used a box intended only for internal use, so that rain entered it and shorted-out the connection). It took the third guy and his supervisor to realise that the original extension cable was broken and needed replacing, together with the leaking junction box. If the first chap had properly tested his 'solution' and the second one had paid attention to his training on the use of various junction boxes I, the customer, would have been better served.

Across many walks of life opportunities present themselves for improvement in customer service, and generally they are not difficult to see. People, by whom I mean those whose job is to serve the public in some way, need to be encouraged to go the extra mile, to go out of their way for their customer and be pleasant about it. I have long felt that the traditional hierarchical corporate structure would be better inverted so that the staff who daily face the customer occupy the most important positions on the company family tree. It is they who represent the company's image, who have to take the flak when things go awry, and upon whom to a greater or lesser extent the fortunes of the company depend. Sure, the company directors bear the ultimate responsibility, but how many of us actually see them or care who they are? The person in the shop or on the telephone to us, however, is very real and we tend to judge their company by the service we receive on a personal basis.

Training is key. Take a company like MuliYork. Some years ago I replaced our three-piece suite, and went to MultiYork to do so. We were able to spend as much time in the shop as needed without hindrance, swapping cushions for comfort and softness as the whim took us before making our choice. We paid a deposit. Four days before promised delivery we were required to pay the balance, and on the day of delivery we were given a two-hour time slot when delivery would be made. It happened like clockwork. No being pounds out of pocket for weeks while waiting for delivery, no waiting in all day in hope, no wondering if the delivery would ever come, just good solid customer service. If they can do it, why not others?

We have recently bought a new bed. I elected to pay on order despite the delivery date being some three weeks off, but had no complaint about the service and advice received from the shop and its manager. However, when delivered on the appointed day the bed was damaged. Not by being dropped, but by water. It was raining hard that day and the van leaked, and furthermore the tail-gate was so ill-fitting that spray from the vehicle's rear wheels entered the goods compartment. That was bad enough, but the plastic covering of the bed was damaged too so that water had penetrated and soaked the fabric. Maybe these thing happen, but as the driver knew of the tail-gate problem, why had he not taken precautions? Ours was the second bed damaged in that van that day at a cost to the company. The customer service took a further nose-dive when we were asked to arrange a replacement order, to wait for a further 3 weeks for delivery, and then (and only then) to phone back with a claim for compensation!!

Abroad the shopkeepers and company employees are mindful of the fact that ulimately the customer keeps them employed, and so they will go out of their way to see that satisfaction and ease of the customer is well served. It requires some effort, some training, and an awareness from every stratum of the company that the customer pays the bills and no-one is more important. Until we ditch the culture of "I work for the company and it pays me to do so" things will not improve. What is needed is for the front-line staff, those whose job is to deal directly with the customer either on the shop floor or on the telephone, to be properly recognised for the vitally important impression they create. Paying peanuts attract monkeys, so reward them properly, treat them as VIP's make them the focus of continuous serviced-based training and revere them. Equally, discipline those who fall short of the required standard. Teach the executives of the company to test each new idea, innovation, system or change in terms of the customer, in other words think like the customer instead of expecting the customer to fit the corporate model.

The rewards are great for both sides. Let the revolution begin.