Matthew Revell

Best. Newspaper. Story. Evah.

Westmorland Gazette: Chair destroyed.

LugRadio listener, Munk3h, has created a Wikipedia page about me. I mention it only because of this fantastic phrase:

“LugRadio podcast presenter providing a joe bloggs approach to topics of conversation”

Thanks Munk3h
Update 31.03.07: As I suspected, I’m not notable enough to have a Wikipedia page It’s gone now.

Want to leave Virgin Media without queuing for hours? Here’s how:

1. Call BT on 0808 100 5152.
2. Ask to port your cable phone number to BT.
3. BT will contact Virgin Media for you.

BT’s sales line will be answered far quicker than the Virgin Media customer retentions number. Virgin Media may call you to ask if you’re sure you want to leave, at which point you can either haggle for a better deal or confirm your choice.

I plan to stay with Virgin Media, for a number of reasons:

• Excellent broadband: despite a couple of rough months, it’s back to the usual high quality service.
• Sky needs competition.
• They pay me: with combined discounts to retain my custom, my last two bills have been for negative amounts - they’re paying me to be a customer.
• Virgin Mobile deal: I pay ?10 a month and nothing else for any mobile or landline calls.

I stopped using their TV service at Christmas, when I bought an excellent twin tuner Freeview hard-disk recorder. I don’t use the landline phone for outgoing calls as it’s far too expensive, instead I use the Virgin Mobile deal.

So, I’d lose by leaving Virgin Media. I couldn’t really care less about Sky One; Lost bores me now and I’ll never need to see Ross Kemp on Gangs, or whatever.

I bought a set top box at Christmas. The shop (Argos) wanted my name, address and postcode to pass to the TV licensing authorities.

Initially, I refused. I have a TV licence, I believe the TV licence is the least bad way to fund the BBC. Out of principle, though, I don’t see why Capita - the private firm that runs TV Licensing - or Argos should be able to demand my details for buying a piece of entertainment equipment.

In a rush, and with a hundred other Chrismas-related things to do, I gave my address and forgot about it.

Today, I received a warning from Capita/TV Licensing. They tell me when and where I bought the “television receiving equipment” and that, unless I ring to tell them that I already have a licence, their enforcement officers will visit me.

In the UK, each address at which TV receiving equipment is used must have a TV licence. Ours is in my wife’s name. Capita appear to check their retailer-provided information on both the name and address, so haven’t found that we are actually licensed.

The tone of the letter is threatening whilst, somehow, managing to weave out of accusing me directly. They tell me it’s illegal to watch or record TV without a licence. They say that, if I need to, I should buy a licence.

Why are they being so vague, when all they need to do is check their database? They even want me to phone them (on an 0870 number) to say that this address is already licensed.

I want to be awkward. If they can’t use their own database properly, yet still want to threaten me with fines and court appearances, I want to put them to the trouble of sending their heavies over, so I can show them our licence. I’ve done nothing wrong.

My cable company changed its name to Virgin Media, today.

So far, the results appear to be:

• The new brand’s website is a horrible confusion between selling the service and the kind of portal that fuelled the dot-com boom.
• The old telewest.co.uk site doesn’t even redirect, it just times out (which they announced would happen for six days, apparently).
• The Guardian’s media section reports that they’re targeting customers who’ll pay upwards of ?1,000 per year.
• The rebrand has been an excuse to raise prices - e.g. the ?10 per month for 12 months broadband offer for new customers, set to expire on 28.02.07, has mysteriously become a ?14.99 offer.

As a customer, I don’t care; there’s plenty of competition and, despite assertions to the contrary in their annual report, I don’t feel enough loyalty to the Virgin brand that I won’t look elsewhere. In fact, I’d have left two years ago if it wasn’t for their increasingly desperate discounting, each time I rang to cancel.

What I do find interesting, though, is how un-Virgin the rebrand has been. The Virgin brand is crafted to represent quality, value and a sense of mutual “fighting the big guy” fuzziness with the customer. Instead, the same old annoyances remain - the TV EPG is slow, the previously good Telewest customer service has been reduced to NTL’s poor level, the award-winning Virgin Mobile customer service is hard to gauge because their staff are so rarely able to access customer data, there’s no way to know if you have voicemail without dialling 1571 to check, the phone tariffs remind me of the 1980s, and now the, once faultless, broadband service is choppy.

So, should I give them a chance before stamping on the rebrand? No, because then it’s not a rebrand, it’s just a name change, and that would be meaningless.

I hate to talk about bows on turds, because that would be vulgar. And perhaps the big press conference later today will hold some surprises; but I doubt it. The website’s up and the customers have been informed of the various price rises.

Cable in the UK - what a wasted opportunity. I’d love to be proved wrong.

Update: telewest.co.uk does redirect now and it’s the online billing service that’s offline for six days.

A warning: it appears that my Canonical email address has been spoofed.

If you receive an email that appears to be from me and has an attachment you’re not expecting or that looks dodgy, please delete it.

If you’re unsure, find me on irc - mrevell on irc.freenode.net.

My new job involves some travelling. International mobile roaming rates are laughably high. VOIP, of course, works anywhere with a decent net connection.

I’ve never had any luck with Ekiga. For some reason, whenever I try to make a call through my Sipgate account, I’m given a “Security check failed” message, even though inbound calls are fine. A quick check in the Ubuntu repositories revealed Twinklephone.

It’s a QT app, so it doesn’t precisely share the look and feel of my Gnome desktop but … it works. It sits quietly on the taskbar until a call comes in or I want to make one and I can talk to people with it. So, it’ll be ideal for use with my laptop and, even better, I can save some electricity by unplugging the PAP2 and using it on my desk PC.

Maltesers are puffed balls of Horlicks mix, covered by a thin layer of chocolate.

There’s a slight variation in boxes of Celebrations: solid chocolate laced with tiny balls of puffed Horlicks mix. Great.

My Maltesers Advent calendar has chocolate behind each door. Thanks to foil seals, the chocolate doesn’t taste of cardboard. That’s a good start. They’ve completely left out any of the malty Horlicks mix, though.

How can it be a Maltesers Advent calendar without the malty Horlicks bits? Day 24 has a door roughly the size of a Maltesers fun (i.e. small) bag, so maybe I’ll get lucky on Christmas Eve.

Hello,

I wonder if there’d be fewer heart attacks among the travelling salesman fraternity, and other frequenters of filling station chiller cabinets, if you put less salt in your products.

It was an odd sensation as my entire face puckered into that of an old woman, as the salt in your Chicken and Mushroom slice immediately rid my body of water through osmosis.

Any chance you could lighten up on the use of salt? It might make me more inclined to buy again and, perhaps, save thousands of children from crying into their pillows in memory of their now departed salesman fathers.

Yours,

Matthew P Revell.

Today, I gave my resignation letter to my boss at Fasthosts. After nearly three years at the UK’s largest web host, I shall be leaving in a few weeks.

I’ve learnt a great deal, met some fantastic people, experienced some of the most ridiculously expensive Christmas parties and am sad to leave. Despite some frustrations, my time at Fasthosts has been enjoyable and entirely worthwhile. I look forward to seeing how the company moves forward, particularly now that it’s part of the massive United Internet group.

My new job allows me to combine some personal interests with an excellent way to progress my career. Details to follow.