dadams.co.uk

It would appear to be Christmas Eve, so I’d like to wish the readers of dadams.co.uk a very merry Christmas. The wife’s Christmas playlist is ringing out of her iPod (as it has done since mid-November) so once again I’m struck by the idea of ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day’ and how grossly impractical that would be. And while we’re on the subject of ridiculous song lyrics… ‘White Christmas’… lovely song, lovely idea, but totally irrelevant as we enter what I believe to be my 37th consecutive Christmas without snow.

Anyway, have a great Christmas, don’t drink and drive, be grateful for what you get and enjoy the Doctor Who special.

John ‘Jim’ Adams - 24th November 1940 to 29th September 2006

I can hardly believe it’s been a year since I got that phone call, my brother Steve telling me that our dad had collapsed and died during his pool maintenance round in Florida. The next week was pretty horrible… I flew out to Orlando with my sister Sue on the Monday morning, attended the funeral on the Tuesday, flew back that evening, arrived home on Wednesday morning… and then we moved house on the Thursday. I was moved by the amount of people who attended my dad’s funeral service. The chapel was crammed full of people… his friends and customers, all of whom were deeply shocked by his sudden passing but full of good things to say about him. Not that I expected any different. Speaking at the service was one of the most moving experiences of life, and it was probably because I do so many (too many) presentations as part of my job that I was able to keep going.

However, one thing I could be 100% sure of today, if he was sitting here next to me now my dad would tell me not to focus on the sad stuff. He’d tell me to lighten up. “Worrying” he once told me “just makes you ill, so don’t do it”. He also once told me to bump him off if he became old and senile (which I didn’t actually agree to and now don’t have to worry about). With this ethos in mind, I’d like to remember his genius and occasional wit with a few choice stories…

Bad jokes - a couple of weeks ago I was chatting with my uncle Terry, and he said that what he most remembered about my dad was his bad jokes. Like father, like son. The one he probably told to everyone, and Terry remembered this, was the one about being a tap dancer and falling into the sink. The ironic thing was that you could tell my dad a joke, he’d tell you it was rubbish, but then he’d tell you one even worse.

He was also very good at spinning stories. Nine years ago I was working in Boston for two weeks and he flew up from Florida to spend the weekend with me. I clearly remember a story he told me about a friend of his who had hit a wild pig with his car, and then later got in trouble with a wildlife warden. It was spun out in great detail for about twenty minutes, until I discovered that it was all completely untrue and had been constructed with the sole intention of delivering one bad punch-line (the pig had squealed on him).

More recently, he’d had the end of one finger amputated due to some damage to the bone. When my daughter Lauren looked very concerned, he just told her that he was special as he was the only guy around who could count up to 9½.

The remote control - nearly twenty years ago (possibly a bit less) Sue and I shared a flat, but as she was a British Airways stewardess at the time she wasn’t there often. My dad stayed in the flat for a few months before leaving for the USA. Mostly this worked very well because he liked cooking and served up some good stuff - his signature dish was mince and potatoes, and also invented the ingenious method of warming the plates by putting them on top of the boiler. Sometimes in the evening, if he was bored, he’d do his best to irritate me for a laugh - things like throwing peanuts at me or hitting my head with a slipper while I was watching television. This was a few years ago, and the television didn’t have a remote control (imagine that kids, the Dark Ages). In the living room there was one prime-position chair in front of the television and a sofa (not in a prime position), so occupancy of that chair was hotly contested - sometimes won by tossing a coin or stealing the position if the occupier moved out. So, the lack of remote control meant that you had to get up and physically go over to the television, which sometimes resulted in a childish race to the prime chair if you could move off the sofa quick enough.

One evening he claimed occupancy of the chair, but then wanted to switch channels. I got ready to make my move - and then I saw it. He had brought in a length of bamboo, and wielded it across the five foot gap to the television to hit the buttons. Genius.

Practical jokes - looking back, one of his pranks stood out. I arrived home from work one day and he announced with the most serious dead-pan face that there were mice in the flat. He then preceded to pull the sofa away from the wall to reveal a number of small black objects which he pointed out were mouse droppings. When I asked him if he was sure, he picked one up, looked at it, popped it in his mouth, and after a moment of serious thoughtful consideration said “yeah, they’re mouse droppings alright”. Of course, they turned out to be small pieces of raisins. Right, very funny. But I had to hand it to him, his face didn’t crack once all through the prank.

I don’t really know how to finish this blog post - I guess I’ll just have to say that he’s very much missed, but we have loads of good memories of the man who loved his family, his wife Susan, and the life that he’d found for himself in Florida.

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit my grasp of the Spanish language isn’t great (my French is better). So it would be rather hypocritical of me to have a laugh at bad attempts to convey instructions in English by our continental friends. But what the hell…?

On an island with so many British tourists and relocated pensioners, surely there must have been someone they could have asked “do us a favour, check if that makes sense”. Mind you, gives me something to blog about I suppose.

This joins a growing collection of crap English spotted in Menorca, including:

• “It loks for your name” (on a display unit for key rings)
• “Same t-shirt wear the driver” (on the Son Bou Express tourist train)
• “Use only clients” (on a boat jetty)
• “Make camp or get bedding is not allowed” (okay, this was in Rome)

Does anyone have any other great examples of less-than-perfect English we can have a chuckle at?

Alright there dadams fans. The couple of weeks of silence was due to the fact that myself and the wife and offspring have been holidaying on the sunny island of Menorca. Two and a bit weeks of swimming, sitting in the shade, reading (the latest three books in Simon Scarrow’s absolutely top-notch Roman saga) and picking fights with people who smoke in restaurants. Well, okay, just the once, and it wasn’t really a fight. There we were, enjoying dinner at Dinkums in Cala Fons… four people arrive and sit nearby and before we know it this complete git has lit a cancer stick and the fumes are engulfing the wife and my daughter. Needless to say this p*ssed me off big time, the red mist descended and I said something to the effect of “either you move or put that thing out”. The sh*t-head then attempted to defend himself by saying he thought they’d finished eating, to which I replied that it didn’t matter whether they were eating or not, they didn’t want to breathe in his smoke. At this point he turned his back on me and held the ciggie away from us, and the wife persuaded me to drop it. Regrettably, unlike enlightened Britain, there are no laws against this kind of behaviour in Menorca (smoking I mean).

So, here we are back in old Blighty. The weather seems to have improved a bit. I still have a further two weeks off thanks to an old clause in the Lotus employment contract (a four week sabbatical after fifteen years of service) which IBM had to honour. Time to read the final Harry Potter volume (released the day after we left) and decorate the fourth bedroom.

I’ve just heard that my niece Melissa has passed her driving test. Not bad for someone who last month celebrated her 16th birthday. But as she lives in Florida they allow that sort of thing.

By way of congratulating her, I’ll quickly remind her that she had the fluffiest, most sticky-up baby hair I’ve ever seen, she spent her first Christmas Day sucking on the crinkly ear of a toy elephant, and did the most amazing display of milk vomiting I’ve ever seen (and boy, did I move fast). It seems like only yesterday I could pick her up and stick her head in the dustbin or a bush… in fact I still can, as last time I was in Florida I picked her up and stuck her in a shopping trolley outside Target.

How did the years go so fast? On my desk here I have a picture of Melissa aged one with my dad… and she’s wearing ickle pink dungerees. But now she can drive a car, and we’re not talking about something made by Fisher-Price.

Congratulations string-bean. And sorry for embarrassing you, but you really did have fluffy sticky-up hair. Just be thankful I haven’t scanned in a photo. Hey, that’s a thought…

The Pink Floyd song of the same name was about freedom from tyranny and oppression - this blog entry is about nothing so dramatic or world-changing, but it’s something to celebrate. Tonight is the last night that I’m forced out of the pub scene. Tomorrow I can walk into a pub safe in the knowledge that when I walk out I won’t stink of stale rancid smoke, and won’t have to hang my clothes up in the garage because they smell too much to bring into the house. Having said that I probably won’t go to the pub tomorrow night because I need to finish painting the hall. But if I did go, it would be a joyous occasion.

I’ve always been a bit sensitive to the fact that I have friends and colleagues who smoke… it doesn’t make them bad people, but let’s just say that I think this smoking ban is utterly wonderful and should have been introduced years ago. I do try to see other peoples’ points of view (sometimes), but in this case the disgruntled smokers can whinge as much as they like. Their disgusting habit has driven us out of pubs and caused us suffering for long enough.

When I see them complaining on the news tomorrow I shall stick two fingers up at the t.v. and laugh at their pathetic whining about their freedom to smoke being denied, the nanny state, and so on. They’ve had it their way, now it’s time for us non-smokers to enjoy the freedom not to absorb their foul odours. Disagree with me if you want, NO-ONE is going to convince me that 1st July 2007 is not a great day.

I’ve just checked my bank account and found that Sky have charged me extra money this month. I phoned to find out why, and the customer service representative told me that they hadn’t been getting a call-back signal from both boxes. Regular readers of dadams.co.uk (I know there aren’t many) may remember that this was an issue that was supposedly sorted out a month ago.

I informed the representative that I hoped the call was being recorded for training purposes, because then new staff could get an idea of what an absolute shambles this company is. Their equipment isn’t doing what’s it’s supposed to, so they charge me money… and I have to battle to prove I’m in the right and get a refund. She said that the viewing cards had been swapped between the two boxes, and suggested that the engineer had been into my daughter’s bedroom and done just that. Yeah, and while he was there he went through her chest of drawers and tried on her gymnastics leotard. Of course he bloody didn’t. What is the matter with these people?

I also asked about the terms of my contract and the implications of me cancelling everything. She said she was sorry I felt like this (and she also asked me to stop shouting). Being their customer is such hard work, and I pay them for my misfortune. If Sky really want to prove they’re sorry, they should sort themselves out. James Murdoch, you should be reading this and you should be ashamed.

Choddo and G have both suggested I convert to Sky HD. Pay Sky more money? My next transaction with them is more likely to be along the lines of standing in their foyer, ripping up the contracts, and then inviting the customer service staff to watch me ram both Sky boxes up the customer service manager’s backside.

Thank you, I feel better now, but tomorrow I have to call them back to resolve the issue (which will no doubt involve some more shouting).

Oh, one other thing… I e-mailed James Murdoch. It would be nice to believe that he’ll read the e-mail and take an action to improve things. But I also believe that one day I’ll win the lottery.

Update: I called Sky again. They said that the charge had been levied on April 27th just before the engineer’s visit, and they could now confirm that they could provide a refund as both boxes are accepting a call back. So (a) why didn’t they tell me that last night, and (b) did they intend to refund the money (based on the fact that I was in the right), or do they only provide a refund when you notice a mistake and kick up a fuss?

The lady on the end of the phone said “all I can do is apologise”. Never a truer word spoken, because they do little else.

When we were looking for a new house last year we saw one property which was not in a great road, was okay house-wise, but had a fantastic garden. One of the things that the estate agent pointed out was the wild strawberries growing there. Well, we didn’t go for that property and ended up in a different part of Camberley.

Almost a year later, while trimming the edge of one of the lawns at Castle Adams, I noticed… you’ve guessed it… a small crop of wild strawberries. Further inspection of the flower beds revealed more strawberry plants. It looks like we won’t be opening a ‘pick your own’ farm in the near future, and don’t expect a huge bowl to be presented should you ever come round for dinner (especially not if the slugs tuck in first).

This is not my first encounter with wild strawberries. A few years ago I was having dinner in Paris with some colleagues, including my good friend and dotted-line manager Uffe ‘the Danes have an answer’ Sorensen (who had steak I seem to remember, but I think he always does). When it came to dessert I recognised strawberries as an option and thought it a safe bet. I was presented with a bowl of the stringiest, weediest-looking strawberries I’d ever seen. The waiter must have caught the look on my face and said something that I translated as “strawberries of the wood” and followed it up with a gesture made by kissing his pinched finger and thumb. That gesture summed up that bowl of strawberries well - looks can be deceiving. They were even better than those plump berries you buy in supermarkets or four for £5 at Wimbledon.

You never know, if I can keep the slugs away I might get a full bowl (a small bowl though). Just don’t expect me to share them.

So there you have it, a blog entry about a BlackBerry followed an entry about strawberries. Next week, something about loganberries (or possibly not).

Friday was the big day… our Sky Plus box was to be replaced. I had to go to a meeting in the morning (damn work interfering with my life as usual), so the wife was left in charge for the morning. The engineer called and said we were his first call of the day. Regular readers will know that any dealings with Sky are generally painful, but my opinion almost did a u-turn on this day.

I wasn’t there to witness the first visit of an extraordinary young man who broke the Sky mould. He cared. He wanted us to be satisfied with the service. He wanted to sort out the problems. He was concerned about the poor service we’d received. Hang on, was he really a Sky employee? Was he not a Samaritan with a tool box and ladder?

First thing he did was listen (are you getting this, Sky head office?) to the description of what had happened. He pointed out that because our system was actually under warranty from the multi-room installation last October (ah-ha, no-one at Sky Central told me that) we shouldn’t have to pay. So our young hero called customer service and told them so, and patiently waited (and repeated it five times) until it finally penetrated their thick skulls. He then installed the new Sky Plus box, fitted the correct connectors (the guy in October had used the wrong type), and then adjusted the dish to pick up a better signal. On leaving, he once again apologised on Sky’s behalf and left the wife his mobile number requesting a call if we needed any more help.

When I returned home all was well with the Sky Plus box, apart from live pause not working (but a forced upgrade on the software fixed this, I knew the problem was there on older versions). I was amazed to hear the story of some good customer service from Sky and the existence of an employee whose first directive was not to extract money from us. However, I then discovered that the movies and sports channels weren’t working. I called the engineer, and he confirmed that he had phoned Sky Central and asked them to pair up the viewing card and the box - a process which can sometimes have a short delay, but not four hours. He offered to come back to us on his way home… a promise he kept. I stood with him while he called customer service and went through the process again. He offered to stay until service was resumed but it was getting late so I insisted he should go and have a great weekend. I offered him some money to have a drink on me which he politely declined as he felt Sky had given us poor service (this is a true story). He told me to call him if there were any further problems.

By Saturday morning we still didn’t have movies or sport. I thought it unfair to call the engineer (he wasn’t on duty) so I called Sky Central. I went through the process yet again… account number, viewing card number, serial number. The lady in customer service admitted she didn’t know what was going wrong. After a few minutes she said that she was transmitting the fix and the channels would be available after a short delay.

Sunday… what a surprise. No movies or sport. I rung Sky Central again, same process again, except this time I asked what they were going to do different. I was passed onto an expert (hmmm) who asked me the same questions again. And then, get this, she told me that if both Sky boxes weren’t attached to the phone line I might incur extra charges. This is typical of Sky… I have a problem and I’m receiving crap service, and they’re more interested in their own revenue. Words fail me. After a few minutes she said she knew why the updates hadn’t worked and the channels would be enabled in two minutes. And she would call back in five minutes to ensure they were working. The channels did work, almost as soon as the call ended. Good. But did she call me back? What do you think?

By the way, if anyone from Sky’s top brass should happen to read this then contact me and I’ll give you the engineer’s name. Promote him, give him a pay rise… he is the ONLY person in your organisation who has ever given me the impression that Sky cares about it’s customers.

Okay, I used that heading once before. A couple of years ago we had Sky Plus installed, and in the first six months had four replacement boxes until, eventually, we got one that worked and stayed working… most of the time. Even then it wasn’t the most reliable of units - recordings would fail and live pause would stop working from time to time.

In the past few weeks however it got worse. This Sunday marked the third occasion this year that all the recordings disappeared into some technological black hole. It was getting to the point where half of the recordings failed, and those that did succeed would freeze numerous times during viewing (which does rather interfere with your viewing enjoyment). As for recording two channels at the same time… forget it.

Phoning Sky is something I dread and relish. Dread because I know that ultimately it’s going to cost me money. Relish because I know I’m going to have an argument with them and that I’m right (their customer service IS poor and their equipment IS crap). As my warrantly had expired, Sky’s answer was for me to pay £65 for an engineer to come along with a refurbished Sky Plus box. Now bearing in mind the obvious poor quality, the 90-day warranty on a refurbished box is worth the square root of bugger all. We recently got a new box for our daughter’s bedroom, and for nearly seven months that’s been trouble-free, a Sky Plus record in my experience. So £160 buys a new box with a year’s warranty. But let’s recap… their customer service IS poor and their equipment IS crap, so on top of the monthly £53 I pay already, I’ve paid £160 so that I can carry on being their customer. Am I a mug or a victim of their monopoly? Or both?

One saving grace is that I got to put one of their people in his place - on telling the sales department about my woes he chuckled, whereupon I told him to stop laughing as their poor service (now with added lack of empathy) was not funny in any way. Does anyone else have experiences of Sky that they’d like to share?