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Regular readers will remember the British Gas saga which began on 1st August last year. Having opted for quarterly bills I should have received one by now. This morning I girded my loins in preparation for a call to find out why I had not. An hour later I was promised a new account with documentation dating from last August.
I had politely asked why I was not receiving bills. This was because there was no electricity being supplied to our address. I assured the representative that I was not sitting in the dark. She looked into the problem a little more and found that the contract had been cancelled two days after it was set up. She didn’t know why. She looked into it again. Each time she looked into it, I listened to music regularly interrupted by a voice asking me why I didn’t join the millions of other customers who managed their accounts on line, and notifying me of the various “smart” and “clever” facilities the company offered.
Finally I was transferred to another person who also looked into it. More recorded messages ensued while she did so. She informed me that the reason the contract had been cancelled was because someone had entered the wrong code. I had to go through all the setting up questions again, and eventually my informant undertook to send me a new contract from the correct date.
Given that my contract had been cancelled, yet we were still receiving electricity, I offered the suggestion that poor Dr. Greenwood, our predecessor at this address, may perhaps still be paying for the supply. I guess I can do no more about that.
After this I ventured into the garden to inspect the ravages of the 70 m.p.h. winds we had experienced throughout the night. Quite a few slender deciduous branches had been ripped from their sockets, and
our evergreen cypress had suffered a certain amount of breakage.
Later in the morning the winds summoned renewed vigour and wreaked havoc with the planting barrier at the end of the back drive.
Becky, Ian, and Flo returned home to Emsworth this afternoon.
This evening, Jackie and I dined on her exquisite chicken curry and parathas.