BT – Page 2 – derrickjknight

‘I Wouldn’t Dare’

My friend Geoff Le Pard, this time, gave me the correct location of the former Gosling home. It is actually on the corner of Woodcock Lane and Silver Street. Jackie drove me out there this morning.

I would imagine the gates are rather different than those Geoff would have known.

Although very convenient for photographing Agars Lane, opposite, the strong sun immediately above the central gable militated against a head-on shot, so

I walked down the Woodcock Lane side hoping for less glare. The very high fence is protected by the deep water-filled ditch alongside it.

Finally, a helpful cloud dimmed the haze at the front and I was able to take a reasonable view.

Having sight of such a splendid abode made it easy to forgive our friend for sending us on a Wild Goose Chase a couple of days ago.

This afternoon I dipped into the selection of rediscovered negatives once more. A reinforced envelope addressed to Elizabeth, containing a letter and a strip of four colour negs would have been impossible for me to identify had not the letter been dated November 2003. My sister had obviously asked, as is her wont, to borrow these treasures to ‘work on the images’. I must have ‘filed’ the package in a drawer when she returned it to me.

One of these photos, from July 2003, was hopelessly out of focus, and another was of no great interest. I scanned and worked on

the fruit of deadly nightshade pictured alongside London’s Regents Canal,

and dandelion seeds floating on the water.

Someday I must compare with Elizabeth what we each did with them.

When, later this afternoon, I came to begin drafting this post, we lost our Broadband connection. Not only that, but all BT’s telephone lines, even including the sales number, were engaged. I may have uttered the odd expletive. And possibly some not at all odd.

There was nothing for it but to lose myself in Josephine Tey’s elegant novel, ‘Brat Farrer’. After a couple of hours or so were back on line. Having calmed down somewhat I asked Jackie to remind me that there was no point in doing anything other than sitting and waiting when this happened again. ‘I wouldn’t dare’, she said.

Jackie fetched, and we ate, a meal from Hordle Chinese Take Away this evening. We drank water.

Whilst Jackie was out, I checked the line again. All was well, except that I could not access WordPress because ‘the server was not replying’. I really was comparatively calm when I rang Apple Support after dinner. The server replied whilst I was in the Apple queue. It seems my patience had borne fruit. I left the queue and posted this.

Imperial Leather

Jackie spent the morning weeding and planting. I chipped in with an hour of clearing up the leaves and other debris from our recent burning session.

After lunch I received a call from BT level 2. This is a more experienced adviser than the poor cannon fodder who field the first problem calls. Since we have had no interruption for the past eighteen hours or so, and I am convinced the problem is outside the house, I was not willing to waste my time or hers by going through the checks all over again, whilst I hung on to the phone when I could be doing something else. We compromised. I hung up. She asked me a few questions, then ran the checks, and called me back.

Well. What do you know? The problem is outside the house. Something I have been saying for a fortnight. There was a term for this, which I didn’t catch, since it was spoken in an Indian accent. There are three possible areas of difficulty: the exchange, the cabinet in the street, or underground. At least that is what I understood. An engineer is to be given the task of investigating this, and I will receive a phone call in three to four days time.

I was at last being given some sense, but we won’t hold our breath.

Our new bath was delivered on Thursday when I was in London. The man who brought it would not help take it upstairs because he wasn’t insured for that. At least he put bit in the hall, which is where it stayed until Jackie and I took it up ourselves. It helped me relax after yet another long distance technical conversation.

We then planted up yesterday’s three rose purchases and gave the whole of the rose garden a good sprinkling.

These are two views from the bench by the orange shed.

The clerodendrum trichotomum undergoes quite a metamorphosis during its flowering. In future posts I will demonstrate this.

Butterflies, such as the Speckled Wood, are enjoying the sunshine.

When our new bath is installed our visitors may well be supplied with Imperial Leather soap. Alexander Tom Cussons 14.7.1875 – 20.8.51, chairman of the eponymous company, is best known for manufacturing this body cleansing agent. He also manufactured a number of others which have since been discontinued. These included Apple Blossom, Linden Blossom, Lilac Blossom, Blue Hyacinth, and beautiful rose perfumed soap that led to the naming of the famous Wendy Cussons Rose. The rose was bred by Gregory & Sons of Nottingham, and was intended to be named after Tom’s daughter Marjorie, but instead she asked for it to be named after her brother’s wife, Wendy as she bore the name Cussons. This extremely successful fragrant hybrid tea has won many awards, and is still available today, over 50 years after its introduction.

Ours is now blooming.

This evening we dined on pork spare ribs in spicy barbecue sauce, savoury rice, and boiled new potatoes, followed by vanilla ice cream. Neither of us imbibed.

Fundraising

Feeling a lot better today, I was able to get up early for a visit from a BT contracted engineer. I have to report an improvement in BT’s service. Despite the wait for an appointment for someone to check the Youview box, Spencer, the specialist, arrived on time, carrying a new box in case of necessity. In the event the problem was not in the box itself, but in one of the cables supplied with it. It was replaced and all is now working. The engineer used a tablet for the multitude of ‘paperwork’. This required three signatures from me, all to be made with my fingertip on the screens. All I could produce were disjointed, widely different, squiggles bearing scarcely any resemblance to anyone’s monicker, let alone mine. This is apparently quite normal.

Yesterday BT, the provider with the most complaints, bought EE, the one with the least. Maybe the new acquisition has worked a little magic.

Much as I have been drawn to venture out in the glorious sunny, yet cold, weather I have seen through the windows this week, I am still not up to it, so I undertook more scanning, this time moving forward a couple of decades to an event covered by Chris on 2nd July 1987. Having looked for one of Elizabeth’s ‘through the ages’ series, I discovered that number 69 was from Chris’s series:

As I have a portfolio of 37 prints my brother gave me after the event, I scanned a selection for this post. You may well ask where I am and what I am doing there. Well, I am in a side-street just off Oxford Street in Central London. So close were we to the main thoroughfare that the watchers in the window must have been in an outlet in Oxford Street.

During the morning notices fixed to the bath announced the event and the charity, Westminster Mencap, of which I was a Committee Member, for which donations were sought.

Volunteers poured in the various ingredients and stirred them into the consistency of porridge. It was a pleasantly warm viscous mixture into which the chosen victims lowered themselves for their allotted stints.

Two slang words for a prison sentence are in fact ‘stir’ and ‘porridge’, which fact you may or may not find interesting.

Most people dressed down for the performance. It was Chris’s brilliant idea that I should approach Moss Bros to ask them to donate an ex-hire morning suit, complete with topper, for the event. I therefore dressed up.

The system was two in a bath for, as far as I remember, each ten minute period. My companion was Jane Reynolds, the then Director of the Association. That wasn’t particularly arduous, now was it?

Tubs of rather colder water were provided for a clean up afterwards. There was no shirking that.

Finally, Fiona was on hand with a collecting box, hopefully relieving spectators of the money they had saved in the Selfridges sale on the other side of Oxford Street.

Fish, chips, and peas from the freezer was what we enjoyed for dinner this evening. We then watched the opening match of this year’s Six Nations rugby tournament. This was England v. Wales at Cardiff. England won 21 – 16.

Did You Host A Party At White Gables in 1982?

I spent most of the day on the telephone or wrestling with television sound. The first phone call was by far the most agreeable, as it was almost two hours in wide-ranging and enjoyable conversation with my son Sam in Australia. This was very welcome.

For a day or two now we have received no sound on our television. I have engaged in several attempts to understand the diagrams and instructions that came with the Sharp Aquos TV and the BT YouView User Guide. I seemed to be doing everything correctly, but to no avail. Half an hour or so at a time was all I could manage without severe risk to my sanity. This afternoon I threw in the towel and called New Milton Sound & Vision who sent an engineer to, for a call-out fee, diagnose the problem.

Those of my readers who have followed my various BT sagas will not be surprised to learn that the problem lay with the BT view box that needs to be replaced. My response was rather ambivalent. On the one hand I was delighted that it wasn’t me at fault. On the other hand I knew what I was in for in negotiation with BT. I’m not going to bore you all again with the business of the hoops one has to go to to reach a live person who is speaking from India. The poor man in that sub-continent was very polite and patient and coped with my irritableness (I had three attempts here at writing etchings [that makes 4] but the computer kept changing it to etchings – I’ll leave you to work out a synonym for irritableness) with understanding, especially as he had a record of all the previous broadband problems. He couldn’t, however, order a new box without a visit from an engineer. The earliest possible appointment was in a week’s time between 7 and 9 a.m. Then of course, we’ll have to wait for the box to be delivered. I ran out of steam for argument.

By the end of this time it was too dark to venture out with my camera, so I delved into Elizabeth’s ‘through the ages’ series and was rewarded with the next one being number 58, which was taken from a print I could not find when I posted ‘Preparing For The Party’ on 22nd November last year. That was illustrated with black and white pictures. I had wanted also to use the colour photo I knew someone had taken at the venue I could not remember. Possibly Elizabeth still has the original print.

Here Jessica, Matthew, Becky, Sam and I are all dressed in our Edwardian outfits outside the home of the host. Louisa may be in the basket. I don’t remember who took the photograph or who gave the party.

You will probably need to click on the image a couple of times to see, hidden in the flower bed to the right, a board bearing what looks like the name ‘White Gables’. So, if you were either the photographer or the host please make yourself known in order to earn my enduring gratitude.

Jackie’s choice chicken jalfrezi and delicious savoury rice comprised our dinner this evening. I finished the rioja.

Early Morning Sun

On her way to an early morning shopping trip Jackie dropped me at Silver Street near Ashley, and i walked back via Everton Road and Hordle Lane. It was a relief to turn right into the lane after walking directly into the glaring sun. The explosion of red, yellow, and green baubles picked up by the camera lens beset my own irises, gradually changing to purple and blue, blinding me to much else, especially oncoming prams and buggies.
This experience took me back to Harrow Road, N.W.10, in the early 1970s when my Social Services Area Office was housed at the Ladbroke Lane end of that thoroughfare. This busy road runs East to West from Central London. On a morning such as this I witnessed the aftermath of an accident in which a driver, similarly dazzled, had, coming from the West, crashed into the back of a stationary bus. I reflected that, perhaps, like me today, he had not been wearing sunglasses.
Opposite the children’s nursery in Hordle Lane, a forlorn little bear sat on a wall. Perhaps an equally sad infant will return to retrieve it and her happiness.
Beyond the school and the church the lane is bounded by fields, and the pavement disappears. Long shadows of trees and me were cast across the grass, and that of their gate crisscrossed the drive to Apple Court Nurseries. Oak trees were silhouetted against the landscape.
Horses that had worn protective masks against swarms of irritating flies in the height of the summer, now clad in colourful sleeveless overcoats, slaked their thirsts in pools of water lying on the surface of their paddock.
Back home, the winter flowering plants, such as these violas, soaked up the sunshine.
Such was the buoyant mood in which I returned from my walk, that even BT couldn’t shatter it. But they tried. Oh boy! Did they try!
Anyone who has been following the fiasco that began at the end of October may have been surprised that I had stopped writing about it. That is because for a few days now we have enjoyed an uninterrupted Broadband service. At 10.51 a.m. I received an e-mail telling me that my new service would begin on 15th December. Further down, in a section headed ‘small print’, subsection ‘cancellation’, was a statement that the new service had already started. What the service was, other than simply ‘broadband’ was not indicated. Since the five working days after which we should have reverted to our old copper system is well passed, and the broadband is working satisfactorily I thought that was the end of it. I had been promised an e-mail telling me when it had been activated, but didn’t receive one.
I then had the first of two conversations with an adviser who was as confused as I was. She suggested I waited until 15th December to see what happened. Whilst I was speaking to her, at 10.55, another e-mail came in telling me that the new service was ready. This prompted a further call from me. After a lengthy time listening to music whilst the sensible adviser discussed the matter with the orders department, a comprehensible answer was forthcoming. We had reverted to the old system. The 15th December service was faster broadband, but not Infinity. The Hub 5 should still work. I had, of course been told that it wouldn’t function with the old service and I would have to change back to the old Hub 3. But it did, so I hadn’t.
While I was at it, I said I wanted to revert to paper billing. This was arranged, and my adviser asked if there was anything else she could do for me. Great hilarity was occasioned by my reply: ‘Yes. Sort your company out’.
at 11.45 I received this e-mail:

‘Dear derrickjknight@btinternet.com

Thanks for contacting us.

We found an answer on our Help website that you’ll be interested in:

Ten great reasons to visit BT.com

Our website at BT.com is changing all the time, so please visit for:

Help – find fixes and tips, download user guides and watch video demos at www.bt.com/help.
My BT – view your bill, make a payment, track orders and manage your services at www.bt.com/mybt.
BT Life – check www.bt.com/btlife regularly for the latest news, offers and much more.
BT Products & Services – see our range of products, services and tools at www.bt.com

Thanks,

BT Customer Service’
If this is all doing your head in, just imagine what six weeks of it has done to mine.
This evening all was again right with the world when we dined on flavoursome pork chops roasted with mustard, brown sugar, almonds, and mushrooms; crisp carrots, cabbage, runner beans; and swede and potato mash. Dessert was spicy bread and butter pudding. I had custard on mine. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I enjoyed Mendoza Parra Alta malbec 2014.

Leaf Compost

The cranking clatter of marauding magpies heard as I walked down Downton Lane on my Hordle Cliff top walk this murky morning, was to give way to that of a mechanical digger in Shorefield on my return. The latter, which was breaking up the concrete bases of the demolished chalets, could be heard from the beach.
Perched atop his ladder in the lane was an Openreach engineer whose van advertised Superfast Fibre. Perhaps others who have been sold this particular broadband are more fortunate than we are. This has been the fifth working day since BT informed us that it would take that long for us to be returned to our old copper broadband. We have heard no more.
Blackberry leaves at the cliff top and the seed cases of an unidentified shrub on the way up to Shorefield glowed brightly. It looks as if the seeds are relished by the birds. Does anyone recognise them?
The stream photographed late yesterday afternoon runs beneath Downton Lane and emerges near Bridge Cottage.
Perhaps because they were neither shrouded in mist, nor burnt out or silhouetted by strong sunshine, the South West side of the Isle of Wight and The Needles were as clear as I have ever seen them. As I prepared to take this shot, the woman in the red coat disappeared from view, so I awaited her return. I then had a lengthy and wide-ranging conversation with the couple, while a cold wind blustered.
It has been my aim to build a row of compost bins similar to those I made at The Firs two years ago. I haven’t yet managed that, but leaves need to be treated rather differently than general plant matter, for they produce a more beneficial soil conditioner and therefore should be kept separately. In order to aid their decomposition they should have air circulating. A plastic mesh frame found in the former kitchen garden provided the perfect receptacle, which, in fading light, I set up at the garden end of the back drive this afternoon, then made a rather desultory start to filling it from piles Jackie has been sweeping up over past weeks. The whirling wind gave me an acceptable excuse for deferring sweeping up any more today. I rather think we will need more of these containers.
Like most of their products, Lidl’s Bordeaux Superieur 2011 that I drank with my dinner this evening is surprisingly good. There is a twist to this particular bottle because Mo and John brought it back from Lidl in France, whereas we have bought similar in New Milton. Jackie drank another glass of the Cimarosa and we both enjoyed her succulent roast chicken, crisp roast potatoes and parsnips, and perfect peas, carrots and cauliflower. She says she is getting geared up for Christmas.

The Skip

28th November 2014
This is the fifth and final day of the black and white flower photo challenge. On the second I posted a close-up of cow parsley that is having a second flowering this year. I finished my response to the challenge with a shot of what this plant usually looks like in winter.
Apart from the soggy newspaper atop a skip in which butterflies perched on pearls in Shorefield Road, it was a sunless morning when I took my Hordle Cliff top walk in reverse.
Openreach vans are regular visitors to this area. I stopped and chatted to a gentleman working on a cab, as we now know the engineers call the cabinet. When, during the first of my recent calls to BT, the Indian adviser told me that the problem was in the cabinet, I would have been even more confused had he said ‘cab’.
This evening Jackie drove us to Wickham where we met Elizabeth and her friend Cathy at the Chesapeake Antiques Centre open evening. Mulled wine and mince pies were served and a beautiful singer performed. I found it difficult to negotiate the crowds in the confined spaces of the corridors between the packed rooms and display cases, so I soon repaired to the Veranda Indian restaurant where I waited for the others, and Cathy’s husband Paul to join me. There we enjoyed our usual splendid meal and Indian lagers.
On our return home I was once more unable to access the internet, and had to post this the next day.

Find The Crop

The rain was back in Downton today, but uninterrupted internet access wasn’t. Which would you like to read about first?
Ok, I’ll be gentle and start with the weather. The fog warning from the invisible Needles lighthouse sounded above the pattering of raindrops as I took my Hordle Cliff top walk just after midday. Cattle, having been brought inside for the winter, have left the sodden fields. Rainwater left its film on the camera lens.

A pair of barely discernible yachts were out on The Solent.

I will now attempt not to rant about BT. The facts should speak for themselves. Not counting the man who connected Infinity Broadband on 10th of this month, we have now been visited by three Openreach engineers. It was number three, this morning, who confirmed that we had been mis-sold our package, which I hadn’t asked for in the first place. After he left I spent the best part of two hours on the phone, mostly pacing up and down the sitting room listening to music. In fact this could easily have constituted my day’s walk. But it the mood I was in at the end of it all I needed to go out and get wet.

The answer is that our house is 2km from the cabinet in the street, and problems develop if you are 1km away. BT have the equipment to check this at the time of installation without having to enter the property.

I began the day’s call to the sales department in England. I was transferred to the technical help team in India, and back to a woman in England whose task it was now to start the process of getting us back to our previous contract. It was when the technical man, putting me on hold for the third time advised me to wait, sit back and relax, that I very politely stated that I had no option but to wait, yet relax was what I would not be doing.

The upshot is that we must wait ten working days for a complaint to be processed and five for us to be put back on our old broadband. That is a fortnight and a week.

After a salad lunch, served with Jackie’s usual artistry, and four failed attempts, I managed to cling to the web just long enough to post my second day’s photograph for the black and white challenge. I chose a tiny crop from a picture of an unseasonal cow parsley head that still blooms this November.

Can you find this little jewel in the full frame?

Had there been any sun today, it would have been setting by the time I was able to work on this post. We are dining on Jackie’s chicken jalfrezi (recipe) tonight, but I may not be able to access The Net then, so I am sending it off now.

Boiling Hankies

Once again this morning we welcomed the company of an Openreach engineer. This is because we continue to have access problems with BT Infinity. In fairness to the service provider, they did follow up the previous visit with a phone call, and arranged this one.
He was mystified as to what was wrong, but replaced the socket provided by his predecessor, and disconnected extension lines we don’t use that reached most rooms in the house.
We were on line when he left, so I was able to send Paul some of the photographs I had taken at The First gallery. These will illustrate a newspaper article.
A couple of Environment Agency staff members were surveying a field at the bottom of Downton Lane when I took my Hordle Cliff walk. A card in a car parked alongside that I took to be theirs indicated that this task was something to do with water. Flies clustered on the vehicle provided evidence of the mildness of the day.
I still use cotton handkerchiefs. As I dropped one, with a thud, into the laundry basket this morning, I thought of certain saucepans, which Jackie and I had discussed recently. In order to clean them, in the 1940s, before she had any sort of washing machine, Mum had boiled up hankies in a large saucepan. In our early days Jackie, and her mother before her, had done the same thing, as had I during brief periods of living alone. Washing machines at that time were not as versatile as those of today. They probably only had one programme, with the result that, as Jackie observed, if you put the handkerchiefs in with other white items you were likely to find gobbets of snot that hadn’t been there before clinging to your clean white shirts.
A liberal sprinkling of washing powder was added to the pan of water, into which you stuffed the unsavoury items, and brought them to the boil. Keeping them bubbling and simmering until nicely cooked, it was best to give them an occasional stir with a wooden spoon, in order to dislodge the more stubborn mucus. This released a cloud of steam emitting the aroma of the detergent, which I can still smell as I write. It was best, if you could afford it, to reserve that particular pan for this process, and not be tempted to use it for porridge, otherwise coagulated residue mixed with milky oats might be imperceptible and prove rather unpleasant. Especially as you probably wouldn’t realise it.
For the fireworks party of 1st November Jackie made a delicious chilli con carne (recipe). Fortunately for us there was plenty left over with which to stock up the freezer. We dined on some of this, with superb savoury rice, this evening. Sticky toffee pudding and custard was to follow. Jackie drank Stella, and I finished the Marques de Carano.

The First

On 29th October I responded to a letter from BT inviting a telephone call because they thought they could offer a cheaper broadband package. I was offered BT Infinity at a lower cost than the current one. This would be faster. We would require a new home hub. There would be some interruption for three days whilst the equipment sorted itself out. There was. We lived with it. That period was over yesterday. At 6.30 a.m. this morning we had no internet access at all. At 7.45 I rang the phone number I had been given. After fifteen minutes checking the line I was informed that the fault was in the cabinet. I asked what that was. It is the box out in the street somewhere. The earliest an engineer could come out to fix it was Monday, that is in three days time.
It was then I went into what Jackie calls ‘honest to the point of ouch’ mode. Eventually we were given an appointment for tomorrow morning. Reluctantly I accepted that. Jackie then reminded me that we had to be in Croydon at midday. I rang the sales department seeking an improvement on this. I had apparently been given tomorrow as an exception. I was told that the engineers were Openreach, not BT. All Openreach vans bear the BT logo, as can be seen by clicking on it to enlarge this photograph taken at Minstead in January. How is the poor septuagenarian punter to comprehend that these are two different companies?
I took myself off for my Hordle Cliff walk in order to calm myself down. As I walked down the lane an Openreach van sped past me.
Internet access returned at midday. A miracle, or what?
This afternoon Jackie, Flo, and I travelled by car to visit Margery and Paul Clarke, and see their current exhibition at their home, The First Gallery at 1 Burnham Chase, Bitterne. This is the fortieth anniversary of their first such event. There is much of interest on the walls, tables, and chairs of what is probably the original Art-Gallery-in-a-Home. Paintings, ceramics, sculpture, jewellery, automatons. Most items are suitably priced for Christmas presents. Our friends offer a warm, genuine, personal welcome complete with cups of tea and Margery’s splendid mini mince pies.
Here are just a few of the items for sale, although there is absolutely no pressure to buy.
A visit to TheFirstGallery.com/xmas40 will provide more images and updates.
Back home, we dined on flavoursome mixed grill casserole, creamy mashed potato, crisp carrots, brussels sprouts, and runner beans. My choice of sweet was tiramisu. I drank sparkling water, and the others stayed dry.