Don’t choose Virgin Media

 

It takes a lot for me to change service providers there has to be some kind of push. This year I got such a push from Virgin Media.

They’d posted through my door over the years hundreds of leaflets, but this time I actually read one.

Generally they had gone into the bin unread because I was already with Virgin Media, but this time I hesitated and read the leaflet. It seemed there was a package on offer at a quarter of the price I was currently paying.

So I rang them up and was told that as an existing customer this offer was not available to me.

So I simmered for a while, thinking about this, and months later went on a price comparison website for other service providers. It seemed I could pay a fraction of my current bills if I joined another company. And they would do everything regarding the transfer they claimed.

So I signed up.

But a few weeks later I had a niggling doubt that the, ‘We will do everything claim’ might not be entirely true. So I checked with them and found I was right. I was joining them for telephone and broadband and it seemed they had only told BT of this intention and not Virgin Media.

Alarmed by this I contacted Virgin Media immediately guessing that they would require time to elapse before they would cancel the service.

I needed the service to be cancelled in December on the 19^th but I was told (as I feared) that it would only be cancelled in January on the 13th.

However, I was assured that the payment I made in December would indeed be my last.

I took that to mean that the payments I was making by direct debit paid for the service in advance.

On the 13^th of January at the witching they did indeed cancel the service and I activated in full my new provider’s service.

A few days later I realised that a payment had been taken from my bank account. I hurried to the bank got the money reinstated. It had been taken by Virgin Media. I cancelled the direct debit thinking perhaps their accounts department had slipped up. Interestingly, BT had not taken any further direct payment for January so I assumed that BT had got it right, and Virgin Media had got it wrong.

Today, I received a letter from Virgin Media demanding full payment. I rang them up immediately expecting to learn it was a mistake.

The man I spoke to who had a strong Indian accent and also spoke so rapidly it was hard for me to catch his words. But he explained that I was mistaken and that there had been no mistake on Virgin Media’s part. It seemed I was paying for a service in arrears which totally contradicted what I’d been early told in December. Confusingly, he then claimed that this January payment was my December payment!

When I spoke to someone else I was told there was a discount. Suddenly the amount I owed had magically almost halved; though how that could be if I was paying in arrears for a service that had stopped on the dot as they had said, I really don’t understand.

I again went over what I’d been told in December, and how I had been led to believe my December payment to them would be my last in order to conform to their policies, but was told again and again that I owed this new amount.

I then pointed out my previous length of time as a loyal customer, seven years, one who had always paid by direct debit and so was therefore reliable and asked for these few pounds owed pounds to be waived; especially as I had acted in good faith throughout in accordance to what I had been told. This cut no ice.

So, ‘You are not prepared to offer any goodwill?’

It seemed they were not.

‘Even though I’ve obviously been paying a higher rate than most of your other customers for years?’

This it seemed this was of no concern to them. But some admission that I had been a well milked fatted cow was confirmed when he said:

‘You should have changed to another package!’

‘But I tried to and was told they weren’t available for existing customers.’

‘They aren’t available for existing customers.’

And so thus we went around in circles.

‘So for the sake of a few pounds you are sacrificing my goodwill? You obviously don’t care about winning back my custom?’

It seemed that was indeed the case. An amended letter demanding a new amount will apparently to be sent to me.

‘Then I shall tell the world never to choose Virgin Media if this is the way you treat your customers.’

He was unperturbed.

And so… because I am a person of my word, unlike Virgin Media, I would just like to say:

Don’t ever choose Virgin Media!

The Devil Comes Knocking

 

The banging on the door was heavy and most insistent. Whoever was there wanted me to come quick. It took me a moment to realise that the banging was on my door, but as I got up I realised it was actually coming from the kitchen.

Somebody was in the kitchen!

Not somebody something.

A manic creature which was shaking the kitchen to pieces.

I rushed from where I was sitting hearing things crash behind me as I did so, was that the lap top that had just fallen to the floor?

The banging noise in the kitchen was coming from the washing machine which had gone into a spin and was battling with an uneven load. I switched the machine off and as it sighed to a halt I looked around at the damage.

The washing machine in its shaking and rattling had managed to dislodge the wooden plinths from the adjacent work units. They now leaned out just above the floor revealing builders rubble in the crevice beyond.

‘Won’t take a moment to put them back,’ I thought after extracting my sopping dressing gown from the machine and draping it on the bench outside.

After sweeping up some of the rubble first and wiping the tiles I set to work. The small plinth on the right hand side slotted back easily into place. Cheered by this I now attempted to put the other plinth back.

It wouldn’t move.

It was jammed.

I tried to shift the washing machine but it wouldn’t budge.

The few second job was already eating away the minutes.

Eventually I ended up like an upside down crab on the floor using my feet to push it back into place.

The plinth didn’t move.

I was afraid if I took it out that I would never get it back in place.

But I did.

Minutes later I repeated the crab dance on the kitchen floor.

And to my great joy the plinth slipped back into place.

‘Hah!’ I thought. ‘I did it!’

I was thinking this as I opened the cupboard door under the sink to throw away the onion peelings and carrot tops and tails.

To find that the bin had been shaken from its place and failed to open out just as the peelings dropped from the plate.

After that was fixed I dared to check on the lap top. It was fine. It had been a pile of books that had tumbled to the floor after my hasty exit.

Phew!

Small Birds Need to Fly Even Lower!

 

The birds don’t sing anymore in the evenings.

I had thought it was the season, or perhaps the disappearance of birds that had caused this emptiness and quietness.

It was while on a recent visit to Barnsdale Gardens as I said my goodbyes to a friend that she chanced to mention birdsong. She could hear them merrily tweeting away in the gardens behind us whilst others she said were singing in nearby high trees.

I strained to hear.

But all I could hear the low rumble and whoosh of cars on the road. I did hear the flat call of a duck from somewhere close, and I could hear my friend’s voice as she turned and pointed in the direction of another small bird she could hear.

But I could hear nothing.

It was quite a shock to realise that something as precious as birdsong had vanished and was unlikely to ever return.

Whenever I read the I Ching it usually tells me, whilst at the same time emphasising my lowly status in the world that the small bird must fly low for its song to be heard. A lovely poetic piece of writing.

So it seems small birds need to fly even lower, and perhaps even perch on my shoulder for me to have a chance of ever hearing them again.

Sword Dancer

 

I’ve become a sword dancer.

‘Come at seven,’ they said.

On a day rainy day I pulled into the car park against the gothic pile of a church and then waited for others to arrive.

I was on time, but the people who were to unlock the hall doors were late. It was a cold night and raining. Thankfully some degree of prescience meant that I had a hot water bottle with me.

The hall eventually was opened up and the sword dancers entered.

It was my first lesson.

Thankfully the ‘blades’ looked nothing like swords.

“Hold the swivel in your right hand,” I was ordered.

I puzzled over the handles wondering which one was the swivel. The ‘swivel’ obvious the others had to be pointed out to me. It was a handle that moved. The wooden handle on the other end was fixed.

So that was how the illusion of the dance was created, the handle moved saving twisted arms from falling off.

Before too long I was walking under ‘blades’.

These were ‘rapper’ blades apparently used by miners to scrap the coal dust from the backs of ponies.

“Don’t duck,” a woman called.

It was all right for her. When the arches formed she was quite safe, being so short in statue, whereas for me the blades were circling just above my head.

“Don’t duck,” she yelled again. But I did, ignoring her, and wisely so it turns out as the blades narrowly missed slicing into the forehead of a tall girl opposite me.

Somehow we weaved in and out, formed what they called ‘nuts’, spun around and picked up our blades anew.

Afterwards, I rang the ex-teenager, ‘I’m now sword dancer,’ I proclaimed wanting to impress, but I left out the information about pits, ponies and coal dust.

I’m a Man!

 

In the traditional folk dancing group I have just joined women outnumber men. I was so impressed by the willingness of some of the women to take the man’s role, so that so many more could then enjoy the dance. They slipped bands over them so that we could identify them more readily. And they did so with minimum fuss.

I had wondered if men could as easily take the part of a woman if ever it was necessary.

The other evening I got my answer.

One of the dances called for a set of nine people. The Caller wanted the men to stand in the middle with a woman on either side.

By chance in my group of nine people this worked out perfectly. And we also had real men and real women. Except, I noticed a man in one of the woman’s position. I was impressed. By taking the woman’s part in this dance he was allowing the other eight people to dance.

Nobody said anything to him, as we went through the walk through.

Then by chance he looked around at the other sets and realised the role he was playing.

If this had been a woman playing the part of a man she would simply have got on with it. She would not have made any fuss. Would not have caused a hold up. But not this man.

“Hang on a minute,” he called out, preventing The Caller from explaining any more of the dance steps. “I can’t do this. I’m a man!”

In this particular dance it really didn’t matter who was who, at all. There were right hand stars, and left hand stars, and we then had to follow this person or that person. There were no paired couple steps at all. It was a dance like a whirl of cogs rather than of romantic hearts. And we already knew this from the walk through. Everyone knew this.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, _____,” someone, perhaps his wife said.

“But this is a part for a woman!” he protested, “and I’m a man.”

His voice was getting louder, and I also wondered if he’d also lowered it an octave or two to emphasise the point. He blustered, inflating his chest with air.

“I’m a man!”

His shoulders were flexed, he-man style, as if he was about to wrestle a woolly mammoth.

The others’ cajoling had no effect on him.

“I’m a man,” he declared.

His arm went into the air. He wanted a woman who was sitting out to take his place.

A dainty elderly lady did so.

As the he-man still chuntering his man-tra sat down with arms folded across his chest, and with his legs set apart.

He seemed too large for his chair, but soon as the dance began we forgot all about him.

He was after all only a man!

The Devil’s Chain

 

I’m standing still and everything around me is in confusion.

“Don’t stand still,” the caller implores.

I look for hands to hold, to make the lady’s chain. There are none.

Someone grabs me, it’s an unknown woman, “I’m your man,” she says. She spins and releases me, but I’m now going the wrong way.

“The woman should be on your right!” the  caller’s exasperated voice yells.

I’m unravelling the complicated weave of the dance. Everything has become chaotic. We stop to reform and wait for the beat to reach a beginning again.

I try once more. It goes half right, but there is one part I can’t recall, I’m suppose to peel away in a half-eight or something, and then do something dozy with the man, who is it the woman-man, and then step to the left, or was it the right?

On the next dance a woman elbows me sharply in the chest and I wince. I think she was trying to show me the right way to go, but  it might have been deliberate.

I’m trying to be light-footed, to twirl on toes. I greet the ones I walk towards with a smile.

“Don’t smile,” the caller snaps.

I realise that the others don’t.

They are simply mechanical parts in the machine of the dance. With tight thin lips they shunt forwards and backwards.

The expert real men occasionally grab me tightly and march me firmly into position, before releasing me to my twirling fate elsewhere.

“Keep the woman on your right,” the caller snaps.

I puzzle over rights and lefts. First we are couple number two and then we couple number one. Now we are couple number three and improper!

The brief rehearsal hasn’t been enough. I’ve forgotten the next bit as I’m grabbed. Was it three steps then a half-turn? Do I go forwards or back?

By the end of the evening there are none that want us to join their set. and I can’t blame them. I am disturbing the free flow harmony. But some do join us eventually.

“Don’t dance it. Walk it!”

I realise this is what the others are doing, with flat footed accuracy.

There are more women to men, so many of the women are having to double up as men. I don’t know who is a man and who is a woman anymore. The men-women also get confused and remember the woman’s steps and not the man’s

The men have none of this confusion. They have never been asked to dance a woman’s part. They have no idea how difficult this can be. How alien and confusing.

“Right hand, left hand,” the caller bellows.

There is an interval and the floor clears.

We sit. I’m hot and sweating, but feeling quite please with how it’s going. I got some of the steps right.

My friend and I were in an animated conversation, When the caller comes a calling.

I look up.

He’s not  happy.

“We’re not that bad are we? my friend asks.

“Well, yes, you are,” he says.

My friend is mortified, and I feel upset as it is her birthday and I’d said I’d accompany her, as she wanted to dance.

“He’s just watching us,” she said.

I’m embarrassed.

When the next dance is announced we gamely stand up again.

“Oh, I’m going to go through that again,” the caller says wearily during the next walk through. “You two change places.”

Everyone stands still to watch.

“We’ll go through that again.”

He dictates the moves, but I’m struggling to remember the earlier steps.

The music begins, and I am whirled into position. Some dragged me here. Some drag me there. I’m cajoled by some and yanked into position by the exasperated male experts. But there are some delights. A half-blind man cheers whenever I repeatedly find his waiting arms.

“Here she is again,” he laughs, and I’m delighted by his sense of fun as he promenades me back to my partner.

At the end of the dance, the caller jokes, “I’ve been watching the newcomers and calling for them, I knew they were behind. I didn’t realise they were four beats behind the rest.”

He gets a laugh, but it is embarrassing. He is watching my every mis-step.

I am delighted when a real man takes my friend away to dance. Glad that she is given respite from my errors and clumsiness.

Right at the very end this same man reappears again He kindly walks with me in the dance. Shadowing me so that with this one I can not go wrong.

I am grateful. I think the dance was called ‘The Devil’s Chain’. First I’m on the inside and then I’m on the outside. He indicates the next person I am to dance with. These men grab me with a fierceness worthy of the devil himself. I am touched by this help. Then when I look for him he is ahead of me seated on a chair and smiling to see that I’m doing the dance properly.

I’m happy and rosy-red when the folk dance evening finishes.

It was fun.

But the next day, I fret that perhaps I  ruined it for the tight lipped, flat footed, elbowing dancing experts who had probably wanted a lovely evening of intricate woven dancing and there I was unravelling it all.

.

Bert Jansch

 

I don’t know the names of the people who sewed my clothes, made my carpets or designed and made my furniture. I make my tea not knowing who made my life so much better by designing a kettle with a flip lid or who enhanced my enjoyment by choosing that particular blend of tea. They are nameless and legion. Perhaps every item should have a tag on it. this was made by … and brought to you by… and then a whole list of people could be applauded for their vision and skill.

But music is different. There is a tag on every song to say who it was written by… and then there is always a singer’s name.

So we more easily moan the loss of the singer-songwriter than we do the person who designed the kettle.

So with apologises to the anonymous kettle makers who find themselves entering the pearly gates I want to pay tribute to the singer songwriter by your side whose name I do know: Bert Jansch.

I never saw him play. I was not a huge fan, but I have enjoyed so much of his music over the years. His guitar playing skills made acoustic songs hauntingly beautiful.

Sadly this troubadour, who bound the present day to the tender music of yesteryear, has passed on by; and England’s lost and ruined castles are draughtier and silent now.

 

 

 

My young love said to me,

My mother won't mind

And my father won't slight you

For your lack of kind.

And she laid her hand on me

And this she did say:

It will not be long, love,

Till our wedding day.

As she stepped away from me

And she moved through the fair

And fondly I watched her

Move here and move there.

And then she turned homeward,

With one star awake,

Like the swan in the evening

Moves over the lake.

The people were saying,

No two e'er were wed

But one had a sorrow

That never was said.

And I smiled as she passed

With her goods and her gear,

And that was the last

That I saw of my dear.

Last night she came to me,

My dead love came in.

So softly she came

That her feet made no din.

As she laid her hand on me,

And this she did say:

It will not be long, love,

'Til our wedding day.