Sir Richard Branson Giveth And Sir Richard Branson Taketh Away

I had an email from Virgin Media on Friday. One of those “hey we’re your best mates, we are, and to illustrate this we’re going to give you an amazing deal to show how much we love you, bud, pal, matey, mucker, fellamelad”. I read the email with the kind of indifference that only a longstanding Virgin Media customer can muster and it transpired that dear Old Uncle Rich – Sir Richard Branson to you – was about to “more than double” my broadband speed but for less than the price I was currently paying. And he was going to do it because I was such a loyal longstanding customer. Because, let’s face it, me and Rich have been going steady ever since he took over NTL half a decade or so ago and renamed it Virgin Media.

Well, it was a nice start to the weekend if nothing else.

Cue Saturday morning. Another email from Sir Rich arrives. This one less chummy and rather more apologetic in tone. Turns out Friday’s email was a mistake. Mr B apologized profusely, nay cheesily. It was sent out by mistake. They were sorry. He was sorry. But there would be some good news for all loyal Virgin Media customers in the next 2 weeks. Honest. About something else. Something else equally as good. Probably.

Yeah right. Another Virgin mobile phone offer or extra sports channels on Virgin Media TV, I should think. I’m not a big fan of shot-put, Sir Richard, you can stick it.

But this whole debacle got me thinking. The poor sap who pressed Send on all those emails (because surely I wasn’t the only one who received such a missive) must be up to his neck in hot water right now. That’s assuming he still has a job, of course, and that Sir Rich didn’t drop-kick him out of a hot air balloon somewhere over the Atlantic. And someone – some graphics design geek – obviously created the email in the first place. Which says Virgin Media were planning this broadband upgrade thing for some time but then just decided to change their minds.

Was it something I said? Or didn’t say? Was I supposed to have replied to Sir Rich’s original email profusely oozing my thanks and attaching a tasty Polaroid of my freshly oiled up genitalia? Did he consider my lack of response to be a singular act of monstrous ingratitude and consequently cancel the broadband upgrade?

That’s rather petty, Richard.

Or was the whole email a scam? An act of in-house sabotage from a disgruntled employee? Sir Rich has banned his marketing team from downloading stuff from the SKY BSB web site and they’ve hit back with an email to drop Sir Richard in the shite?

Hmm. To be honest, that scenario doesn’t work for me. If you were a disgruntled employee you’d send out a far worse email than “we’re going to double our customer’s broadband speed for half the price”. It would be along the lines of “hey, did you know that Sir Richard Branson molests disabled baboons in his personalized spaceship paid for with your hard earned money?”

Now that’s the kind of email that would have made my weekend a good one.

But no.

So, a double-dip disappointment on the Virgin Media front, then.

*sigh*

Situation normal. Thanks Rich.

Howlin’ Mad Murdoch

Being of weak moral persuasion and a sucker for an old git in distress I found myself having a turncoat moment this week when I saw and read about the custard pie being thrust into the face of Rupert “Dr Evil” Murdoch.

I know he’s an avaricious, power grasping, devious, underhanded media mogul who cares little for the little man on the street other than how much spare change he’s willing to throw at his scurrilous newspapers and his satellite channels. I know he probably didn’t ask too many questions about how his minions acquired their scoops and exclusives other than “how little money do you want in your redundancy pay-off if you don’t get the story?” I know he looks like Arthur Askey in a baseball cap.

But, come on, guys. He’s 80 years old! He’s probably attached to a colostomy bag. He probably can’t remember the names of those closest to him (which is why he said of Rebekah Brooks – “my priority is to look after this one”). He’s probably being fed a diet of Viagra pills just so that his aides have something to keep him wedged upright under his desk with when he attends board meetings.

He’s an old man.

Sure, in the past I have spat at the mere mention of SKY. Sure I have wiped my metaphorical arse on the pages of The News Of The World. Sure I have lampooned all that he has stood for.

But a custard pie in the putz of an old man?

Is that an appropriate protest? Is that an appropriate way to display displeasure?

Isn’t it like Regan pulling Gloucester’s beard in King Lear? Ignobly done?

I know, I know. How much more ignoble have Murdoch’s minions behaved in their phone hacking activities? There can be few things lower than sifting through other people’s personal grief just to sell a few newspapers.

But even so. A custard pie in the face of an old man? It’s just not cricket, is it?

I don’t doubt the custard pie thrower (Phanton Flan Flinger – remember him, TISWAS fans?) thought he was striking a blow for us all.

“I was doin’ it for justice wun I? Doin’ it for you’s lot and all the uvvers that Murdoch and his team ‘ave trampled all over. Power to the people!”

Except he wasn’t, was he? He was doing it to get on the telly, for self publicity, to get (ironically) into the newspapers and (if he had any kind of business acumen) to publicise a new chain of pie shops that he’s about to open.

This whole thing has been enough of a circus as it is. And while I’d be quite happy to see Rebekah Brooks flung about in a skimpy leotard and fishnets on a trapeze (with me lying on the safety net down below) I don’t really want to have to witness Horlicks the Clown (standing in while Co-Co is on sabbatical) lowering proceedings even further with a short crust pastry base and whipped cream from a can.

Can we have a bit of dignity please? It’s been in short supply all round through this fiasco and would make a really nice change.

Save Your Love, My Darling, Save Your Love

One of you has blabbed.

One of you couldn’t keep your mouth shut about the good thing we had going.

The meals out. The flirty texts. The lingerie and the peanut butter. The hot nights rucking up the bedsheets in cheap hotels as we lost ourselves in wild abandon.

One of you has run to the press and sung like a canary.

And I mean to find out who (Rol, I may yet forgive you if you come clean right away).

I’ve been approached by a journalist. A freelance journalist no less. And yes, I had to control my knee-jerk sneer at the word “freelance” because I interpreted it as “I Want To Be A”. Apologies to all you freelancers out there. I am a man in the grip of cynicism.

This journo wants to do an interview with me. A telephone interview no less. She wants to start a new blog (blog? Oh. That kind of freelance journalist? One of us, basically). A blog about love, relationships and dating but more particularly centred around the issues of long distance relationships.

And she wants to interview me because (and I quote): “as you are quite the expert, gaining your insight would be fantastic”.

Eh?

Quite the expert? Me? The only long distance relationships I have (if you discount my parents who live in Sheffield while I live in Leamington) are with you guys.

And although I love some of you dearly (most of you cheaply) I’m not sure that I can say we’ve ever dated. Let alone spooned or exchanged bodily unctions.

I know some of you have fantasized about it. I know some of you have begged (please keep those emails a-coming – they give me a good laugh when I’m down).

But I think I’d know if, you know, you and I had got serious.

Now, I’m not saying I don’t care about you guys. I’m not using and abusing. I’m not going to kick you into touch once the shine has worn off. We’re going steady. But you do know it’s purely platonic, right?

I’ve got a wife and family and a major phone tapping scandal to think about here.

So, what I’d like to know is: which one of you has been telling porkies? Which one of you has been telling lies? And are there going to be any faked photographs in the tabloids?

This is a polite request to withdraw your allegations.

Because they’re really not going to help BSkyB’s plans for world domination one single iota.

Just think about it and do the right thing, kay?

P.S. Car park as usual tonight. I’ll flash my headlamps twice. ;-)

There’s Nothing Gray About This – It’s Plainly Black & White

Unless you’ve been living under a duvet all week (congratulations if you have) you can’t failed to have missed the current sexism row over at the Sky Corporation that has claimed the liver-spotted scalps of Andy Gray and Richard Keys. I’m sure they’ll make nice shower caps for somebody.

What can one say about their behaviour? Childish? Ill advised? Thoughtless? Stupid? We’ve all heard the “it was only banter” excuse wheeled out by various pundits in the aftermath of this politically incorrect implosion. They were just having a laugh, etc, appealing to the most common denominator of their traditional viewing demographics, they was talkin’ football after all weren’t they and we all know what footballers and football fans are like, don’t we?

Yeah. Thick. Tasteless. Atonal. Neanderthal. Synaptically challenged. Their knowledge of Archimedean geometry limited to the Off-Side rule.

Am I being sexist? No, I’m being deliberately offensive.

Mr Gray and Mr Keys however were deliberately sexist. Let’s be honest, there isn’t a linesman or a referee in the world that hasn’t been slagged off by some football fan either in a pub or on the radio or on the TV.

But the complaints will have centred around a piece of bad decision making or a bad call. It won’t have revolved around or centred around the gender of the official.

Andy Gray was quite within his right to take the female lineswoman to task if he felt her call was a bad one. What he didn’t have a right to do was to cast aspersions upon her qualifications for the role – these qualifications quite plainly in Gray’s view being compromised simply because she was a woman. Out of order. Then of course we had the old, tired, lazy verbal exchange about what do women know about the Off-Side rule anyway?

Oh ho ho. Because obviously the Off-Side rule is so difficult to grasp and beyond the capacity of a woman to comprehend that it explains why there are no female scientists, astronomers, quantum physicists, astronauts, surgeons and, oh yeah, professional footballers.

It wasn’t banter. Banter (in my book) is clever and entertaining. There was nothing clever or entertaining about the guff that Gray and Keys came out with. It was like listening to a couple of male 6th formers giggling in the back of a bus about all the girls they fancy but are too scared to actually talk to. You just wanted to slap them both across the back of the head and tell them to grow some pubic hair.

As for the moans that this whole debacle has turned into a witch-hunt I can do no better than direct you to Misssy M whose post on this issue will open up a whole other side of thought and debate.

For the record:

Gray was right to be sacked.
Keys should have leapt onto his own sword sooner.
And yes I despise football utterly utterly.

Because it seems to me that it nurtures and throws billions of pounds at oafish stereotyping behaviour.

Dare to say I’m wrong? Just read the newspapers. Every. Sodding. Week.

Bad Debtors

It’s rare that I gripe about monetary matters on this blog but today I’m feeling particularly nettled.

As well as working full time the local government authority in Leamo (and writing a novel in my spare time), I also have my own part time web design business. It’s been going about a year and although it’s not destined to expand to the point of ever getting into legal wrangles with huge eff-off companies like SKY or Virgin it does make the mortgage easier to pay and allows me to occasionally treat myself to a luxury item or two to make all this hard work seem worthwhile. It also allows me to pay off the various bills and sundries that the modern age seems to offload onto most of us.

Or at least it does when I get paid.

I know that all freelancers have great difficulty getting their customer to cough up the cash but it’s bloody annoying when I can’t pay my debts cos someone won’t pay the debt they owe me.

Karen feels I should get tough. Down tools until I get paid. I must admit I’m probably less business minded than she is – and possibly more of a wuss – so I have tried to avoid taking this nastier stance. I mean, such games of one-upmanship could lead to the clients getting arsy and heading elsewhere and STILL not paying me.

But given that I’m now owed over £600 and payment is virtually 3 month’s late I’m beginning to think that I have very little to lose.

I hate getting all hardnosed about it but they’re now COSTING me money rather than just denying me my due.

You know who you are. Pay up or I’ll stick the boot in!

Ok. Gripe over.

Sky’s The Limit

And who needs limitations?

I’ve been with NTL for about 7 years. I chose them mainly because friends of mine were with NTL and because as bad as their customer service always was they were no worse than any other UK ISP. They’ve now been taken over by Virgin Media... and although their customer service is yet to show ANY signs of improvement they’re still no worse than other ISPs. Same meat, different gravy. Better the devil you know. Etc.

Like most TV service providers, NTL (as it formerly was) featured a number of SKY channels on its TV packages. With the takeover of Virgin Media these channels have now been denied to Virgin customers because SKY and Virgin are apparently locked in some kind of age old bitch-fight.

So as usual the man on the street loses out.

Now, I don’t really give a rat’s doo-dah what their enmity is based upon; who drew first blood; what caused the row; who stole whose boyfriend / girlfriend / nanny goat – I just think it’s pretty pisspoor of SKY not to honour a longstanding agreement with NTL just because they’ve been taken over by a company that they have hissy fits about. It’s childish, pathetic and you know what else? Dishonourable.

How very big of you SKY, I don’t think.

Of course SKY is now pushing a major advertising campaign onto the UK to try and encourage Virgin Media users to defect so that they can once again enjoy the dubious delights of SKY One, SKY Sport and SKY Crapola.

Sorry?! You’re trying to kid me that you care about the customer first and foremost? That you’ll put our needs first?!

Yeah right.

To tell you the truth, not being a sports fan and preferring to buy my own selection of movies on DVD rather than sift through the crumbs of SKY Box Office I never really watched SKY anyway. With the exception of not being able to watch Malcolm In The Middle re-runs the loss of SKY has impinged on my life not one bit.

SKY you can stick your TV channels right up your stratosphere. And while you’re doing it, why don’t you try and grow up?

P.S. By the way folks - this is my 100th blog. Hurrah!