Silly Title For A Blog Post!

I can't think of a better name to put in the title of this blog post. And why not? I may think of a better one, but it doesn't really matter.

Wednesday. 10.55 p.m. I was sitting waiting to go out after 9 o'clock this morning and as I waited, the telephone rang and it was the renal unit at Milton Keynes Hospital. My appointment with a consultant there is cancelled. This is a relief to me as it must be due to the consultant there looking at the results of my recent blood test. I was advised by the nice lady I spoke to that I should contact my GP at Central Milton Keynes Medical Centre to discuss where my care will go next. Just a relief that nothing suspicious was discovered.  I then drove to Aldi in Bradwell Common to do a top-up shop. 

I attempted to telephone Central Milton Keynes Medical Centre this afternoon. I could not get through, even after around three attempts. You get through to the appointments line after you get the 'menu of options, but after being held with nothing but a voice telling you which options to select and that you can make your appointment online, I just gave up. Well, I did attempt to make an appointment via the online facility, but for some reason, it has been blocked, so it annoys me that they tell you it is an alternative to the telephone system. I shall just have to have another attempt tomorrow morning.

Thursday. 12.20 p.m. It's a strange sort of day weather-wise. It started out dry and mild, but as I write this the weather has changed for the worse. It's howling a gale outside (just as well not inside!) and I reckon it will rain before the day is over.

At long last, after around half a dozen attempts, I have managed to get through to Central Milton Keynes Medical Centre. I will get a phone call from my doctor on 11th June between 2 and 6 p.m. 

I have bought a food processor. I have spent vouchers I earned from doing online surveys, one of which is something I have been on for around 10 years, where I have to log anything I buy, books, CDs, clothing etc. As you log your items, you earn points and then, when you have enough, you can cash them in for vouchers The site is called Consumer Pulse. The only way you can get involved is to have an invitation, which I did. Over the years I have been able to trade my vouchers in for a Panasonic Freeview box, a Hitachi HD television, a Panasonic microwave oven and several more items. I got most of these items from Argos, and recently I bought myself a new electric kettle, toaster, kitchen knives and more recently the Bosch food processor. I am with other online survey sites, each earning points which can be converted into either cash or vouchers. If Amazon points, it allows me to buy books and virtually anything on their site. I have today ordered a digital kitchen scales which I intend to use to do some baking. I have also done some market research where you chat via Zoom (which is convenient since we were in lockdown at the time.) and earned considerably more than doing the straightforward online surveys. The cash from those has gone into my savings account. I would like more similar surveys.

Later. 2.30 p.m. The post came at around 1.30. I picked it up from the floor after it came through the letterbox. One envelope, with an address window in it. An appointment has been made for me at Milton Keynes Hospital on 21st June. Wait a minute. Didn't I have a telephone call from the hospital to tell me there was no need for the appointment and that it had been cancelled? What is going on here? No wonder the NHS is always in such a financial mess, with this sort of craziness going on. It just seems a waste. A definite case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing.

More . . . Of What? 2: The Sequel

(Friday) So, more of the same? I can't think what's likely to change. Not a lot. If anything.

We're being told that there's yet another variant of the coronavirus Covid19 virus. This time it's in South America, I think Brazil. Boris Johnson has closed the borders and nobody from those countries is allowed in. When I think of him closing the borders, it makes me think of him literally standing there, arms akimbo, one foot on British soil, the other in the sea, like one of those Gillray cartoons you see from the 19th century (or was it earlier?) with a defiant look on his face, tousled hair blowing in the wind and the virus held firm in a sort of fishing net. Or Winston Churchill, in similarly defiant mood, standing on the White Cliffs of Dover, with Vera Lynn's plaintive voice on the soundtrack of a scratchy black-and-white piece of British Pathe newsreel, with his words from his famous speech comes out of the loudspeaker of an ancient radio 'We will fight them on the beaches and on the landing stages. . . if England and  her Empire should last for a thousand years, men will say . . . this was their Finest Hour.' Not that in any way am I suggesting that it's Boris's 'Finest Hour.' Far from it. 

I can also imagine Boris as Gandalf, in the first of the "Lord of The Rings" books and films, "The Fellowship of The Rings." The party of dwarves, lead by Gandalf, enter the Mines of Moria and they get to The Bridge of Khzad Dum. It is guarded by the great monster, the Balrog, a fire-breathing creature which confronts Gandalf. He shouts at it 'You shall not pass!" In this case the Balrog is the coronavirus covid 19 virus, huge, round and covered in spikes things and bright green/blue. It is Boris Johnson who bellows at the thing "You shall not pass!" meaning it can't come into the United Kingdom. But in the Lord of The Rings, Gandalf fights the Balrog to the death and then he too falls to his death. But I won't give the story away as to what then happens. Poor old Boris. I don't envy him being PM during this pandemic. He's never going to be right, whatever he does. A very difficult job. Damned if he's right or damned if he's wrong, or words to that effect.

Strange thumping noises somewhere within Dexter House. I suspect it's the workmen who have been taking out asbestos from the ceilings along the corridor in which my flat is. That section is complete and now they are working on the other section. They had to keep tenants away and we weren't supposed to go out when it was on (I have mentioned this in earlier posts.) Another company came in to plaster the ceiling and then another company has rewired, ready to put in new emergency lighting.

I discover the thumping noises are from workmen digging a trench in the garden. Along the edge of a lawn area, with some trench leading towards the building. It might be something to do with the wiring for the emergency lighting, but I'm not entirely sure. Emergency lighting outside in the communal garden. I think they are replacing the old ones. Probably more cost-effective and lower carbon emissions or something. Anyway, at least I know what's going on, or I THINK I know.

(Saturday)I had ordered a new coffee table from Amazon and it turned up during the afternoon. I wasn't expecting it to arrive so quickly. Then the reading light arrived. I began working to construct the table. Not difficult, but it takes time and with so many pieces, in particular the screws and other bits and pieces, I assembled most of it and then left it, and as I write this these sections are leant against the bookcase. I will finish it off later tomorrow morning. The Tomshine floor reading lamp was easy enough to assemble. It works with a power pack which plugs into the mains. The metal sections screw together easily and it stands on a weighted base which is round. I soon had it working, a range of light intensities. It helps to make reading easier and the head is adjustable on a sort of flexible section so the light can be set to exactly how you like it. I am pleased with it. It had controls on it's upright, on/off and another to adjust the setting of the light, but it also has a remote control with is magnetic and will adhere to the metal stand. It needs AAA batteries which didn't come with it, so I will need to go out and buy some later today. I am more than pleased with it and I wouldn't have found this without Amazon.

(Later) I went out with Alfie at around 7.30 this morning. I knew it was likely to be raining, but it looked as if there had been snow in the night as some of the cars parked along Dexter Avenue had a sprinkling of the white stuff. It was really cold and wet and Alfie was more determined to return straight home, but I encourage him to make sure he did everything he had to. We crossed over Oldbrook Boulevard to put the pooh bag in the bin and he soon trotted back to the flat. I think we're likely to get heavier snow later in the day. There's quite a wind blowing as I write this (9.10a.m.)

I went to Waitrose and bought a pack of AAA batteries and when I returned to the flat I put a couple in the remote for the reading light. Bingo! It works! You can even dim the light using the remote! The only problem is I have so many remotes now: one for the Hitachi television, another for the Panasonic Freeview box, another for the Firestick and another for the Goodman's sound bar. The one for the reading light can easily be confused for the TV remote. Oh, does it matter? Just got to get used to all this technology.

I have now managed to finish off the coffee table. A good deal wider than the red IKEA table which I've had since moving to the flat. It's quite fiddly and time-consuming doing up the screws, which are in rather awkward places. I have still got the drawer to construct, but it's done. I am wondering if it needs the top covering in varnish or something, to protect it from the odd spill it's likely to get, as such accidents can be wiped off. I always think that it's best to build these flat pack bits of furniture to do it in stages, as it can become somewhat frustrating, what with all the pieces and reading the instructions. Also made somewhat difficult with Alfie getting in the way, so he was put in the bedroom with the door closed. Just makes it even more difficult with a small dog who wants to get under your feet. He just doesn't like being left out.

Technical Problems and Medication

I've been having technical problems with my Panasonic Freeview set-top box. I think I've mentioned that I replaced Sky with Freeview. It made sense, because I didn't get the best value from their service and it was costing quite a bit for the privilege of having their service, and Freeview is, well, free. The new set-top box has been working perfectly successfully, but they keep on upgrading the software (I presume that's what it does, you keep getting messages to do this and then when you try to find channels, they have moved them around or added new ones. Somewhat annoying.) But after one up-grade, for some reason or other the box wouldn't connect by wi-fi to the internet router, which meant that I couldn't use the catch-up facility which it has, so couldn't use BBC iPlayer or ITV Hub and all the other similar services.  No amount of fiddling with the various settings would re-connect to the router. I have now got it working again, not connecting via wi-fi, but by connecting a cable to the box and plugging it in to the router. The cable purchased from Amazon and ordered on Thursday and delivered yesterday evening. One of the advantages of having Amazon Prime, you get next-day delivery on virtually all that they sell. The Freeview box is now working as it should and I'm enjoying watching a lot of archive material on the BBC iPlayer.

I recently up-graded my Fire Stick to one which now has Alexa voice control. This was bought for half-price during Amazon's Black Friday period, so it seemed a good enough excuse to get one. Not only do you get the range of video material but by using Alexa you can have games, which are voice-operated. I was surprised how easy it was to set up and get running. I'm really glad that I bought this when I did.

I have mentioned that I had been prescribed Sertraline and Temazepam. The first is a anti-depressant and the second is a sleeping tablet. I took the Temazepam for only a couple of nights but found that there were unpleasant side-effects. I don't think it helped me sleep, even though I had a hot bath and a hot-milky drink before going to bed. I still wake at around 4a.m. and was then unable to return to sleep, but the next morning I felt really nauseous and got horrible shakes, which didn't go off completely until around midday. I stopped taking it a day or two before I was due to drive to Worcester for Christmas, because I don't think I would have been safe to drive the car.

Later. I took Alfie out for his usual early-morning walk, walking along Strudwick Drive and across Oldbrook Boulevard and I couldn't help seeing 'that woman' who stands in the road stopping cars and asking for money. This must be the sixth time I've seen her. I was keen to get back to Dexter House without the possibility of her stopping me or even following me back. She's dressed the same way as she has been before, tidily dressed, wearing dark trousers or leggings, a short top, like a bomber jacket, has short-copped hair, mousy-coloured, aged mid 40's early 50's, height around 5' 8. When I got back to the flat I rang 101 and told the Police of this woman, because I'm concerned for her safety, either getting run over or even stabbed by someone (unfortunately these things happen.) She must live somewhere nearby in Oldbrook and presumably in a residential home for people with either learning disabilities or mental health issues. If so (and it seems more than likely.) she must have a key worker or at least a support worker, or even a social worker who would look after her care.

Later still. Having sorted out the Freeview box (as explained above.) the Fire Stick was playing up on Sunday evening. It would not connect to the wi-fi router. I could not get a connection until I restarted it (having gone to the Amazon site and searching for 'help.' This worked and it soon joined the wi-fi router and the problem was solved.

Telephone Troubles

My Diazepam tablets ran out yesterday. I am only given them in batches of 10. This is because they can become addictive and sometimes, if taken regularly, your body gets used to them and they become ineffective. I had to ring Ashfield Medical Centre this morning to at least get a doctor's appointment to either give me a repeat prescription or give me an alternative that have the same effect. They help me sleep and I'm not lying awake in bed at 2.30a.m. with all my problems going through my head, the biggest one being when will the D.W.P. sort out the possible pension that Carol had when she lived and worked in Bournemouth and the fact that I'm not being paid my full rent through Housing Benefit. With this in mind I began ringing at around 8.25 and eventually got through at 8.35. I'm still uncertain what time they are supposed to open the lines, because, before they answer, you just get a sort of engaged tone. Then, when I did eventually get through, there were no more than four other people in the queue in front of me. That infernal music you have to endure has changed, when you are put on hold, and the woman's voice who tells you 'we have a high volume of calls at the moment,' and 'sorry for keeping you waiting,' sounds less angry. Why did she sound so angry to me and similar to the voice of Shula in the BBC radio soap 'The Archers'? Sorry, but to me she does, and it's almost as if this 'voice' has a sort of tone to it suggesting, 'get off my line, I'm busy, and I don't want to be disturbed!' Then I eventually got to be first in the queue and I was ACTUALLY SPEAKING TO A HUMAN! what ever is the world coming to? I explained why I was ringing and then was told I should have rung another number for repeat prescriptions, which opened after 11a.m. Having given my date of birth and then name (I suppose they have to do this, so as to make sure that they're dealing with the right patient and that you don't get someone else's medications and it would no doubt be a contravention of G.D.P.R. (General Data Protection Regulation, yet another E.U.-imposed bit imposed legislation which I bet hasn't been voted on democratically in the E.U. parliament and no doubt invented by some faceless bureaucrat, or am I just being a pessimist?) I said that, because it wasn't on a repeat list, as are all my heart medications, I should perhaps have an appointment with one of the doctors to discuss this, also, how I was coping with taking the Diazepam, any side-effects etc etc. So, at the end of the conversation I was left none the wiser and hopefully going to get a call-back from one of the doctors when she told me that she would pass the information on to the duty doctor who was assigned to deal with appointments, once he or she had heard what the appointment was about.

There's absolutely no certainty at what time the call-back from the doctor is going to be. I can be barely an hour or two, but it was getting nearer and nearer to midday when they still hadn't returned my call. I went upstairs and was laying on my bed when the phone rang and I ran downstairs to the phone in the hall (that is, the landline phone) and picked up the phone, expecting it to be one of the doctors with the awaited ring-back. It wasn't. A foreign-sounding woman with an Oriental sound to it, telling me she was 'from the Windows department' which immediately rang bells, as I could tell it wasn't a curtesy call. I know, from  really nasty experience, that all these calls are a scam, they just want to get into your computer system and hack your details, bank account numbers and so on. I told her I knew it was a scam and told her to get off my phone and all I got back was a load of expletives F you B . . . F you B . . .  F you B . . . which told me all I needed to know, so I immediately put the telephone down. You know the old saying 'once bitten, twice shy,' which is about all you need to know. For a  start, no sooner had she said she was from the Windows department and that 'there's a problem with your computer,' I knew it was a scam because I don't have a Windows computer. End of story.

I had another of these 'scam' calls, this time on my iPhone. I can't see where they get my number, landline or mobile. I don't intentionally give my numbers out and they shouldn't actually be phoning me because I'm signed up to the preference service which is supposed to stop these unsolicited calls. Then there are those calls that, when you pick them up, nobody answers and there's just a long silence until you get this weird 'good bye,' at the end. What is that all about?

Later I got yet another call, from of all people, Sky. They knew that I had closed down my Sky Television account and even gone as far as sending back the Q Box and all the paraphernalia that went with it, including the cables and the two remotes. Sky sent the packaging, very cleverly posted in a flat-pack format and you have to assemble it yourself and use peel-off adhesive strips to keep it all together, along with pre-paid postage labels. But I wasn't swayed by the marketing tactics of the young man on the other end of the phone. I said I now had Freeview and I had no intention of resubscribing, basically because of the cost and the fact that I didn't need even half of the channels. Apart from that, the Panasonic Freeview box I now have is perfectly adequate. It allows you to record and also you can use catch-up with such things as BBC iPlayer, as well as having a dedicated Netflix button and if you look carefully, such things as YouTube and even Amazon Prime video, which means you don't need to set up the Fire Stick which can be quite touch and go whether it will work properly.

Cutting Costs

Since my lovely Carol passed away in December, my financial situation has been in meltdown. You may have read in my blog posts about my situation regarding Housing Benefit and Teachers' Pensions as well as more recently Pension Credit and the fact that the D.W.P. had discovered that Carol had paid into a pension when she worked in Bournemouth. Still no response regarding all this but those people for work for these government departments work slowly. (One speed, slow and stop.) But elsewhere I have managed to reduce my outgoings, Anglian Water have cut my bill to an amazing £6 per month and I recently ditched Sky television. I now have a Panasonic Freeview box which does virtually the same as a Sky Q box, including being able to record television programmes as well as having catch-up services such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, ITV Hob (is it called ITV Player? I don't know.) as well as the Channel 4 catch-up service. No real difference in picture quality or any loss or anything-quality and, frankly, I don't miss Sky in the slightest, except possibly the amount I paid per month. I am still with their broadband, nothing changed there, and it's around £28 per month, and also I have Sky Mobile, which I set up around 4 months ago, with a brand new iPhone 7 and my monthly bill for that is an amazing £19.50 and they doubled my data usage for the same price, which can't be bad. Also, at the end of each month, any data that isn't used can be saved and either added to the next month's data or can be cashed in for accessories for your mobile, which is one of the reasons I chose to move to Sky Mobile.

The last thing that needed sorting was my car insurance. I knew it was about to need renewing. Then I got a letter in the post marked Swinton Insurance, the company which I have the motor insurance with. Last year's premium was just over £1000 and this year the just under half of that, with a monthly payment of around £48. Which pleases me, as you can imagine.

Then earlier in the month I got a telephone call from SSE, and they can reduce my yearly payment for gas and electricity by around £300. Being on a pay-as-you-go meter system it means you never get behind with a bill and can see from the meters how much you are using, but I would like to have a smart meter because you can see how much power you are using and also pay via an app or on-line rather than having to top up at a shop. But, as you will know if you read my blog posts, that I've had two companies say they can install a smart meter but when they arrive at look in the meter cupboard, they say they can't go ahead because they would need to drill a hole through into the house, basically because the gas meter is on the outside, in the meter cupboard, whilst the electricity meter is on the inside of the house. Why on earth were they not put together in one place? It makes life difficult if the gas runs out in the winter, you have to go outside with the step stool and a torch, especially when it's cold and dark, and it's quite an effort to then put the card in the slot in the meter and go through the process of checking the amount left on the meter etc etc. But the work has to be done by my beloved landlord who doesn't want to spend any money on anything in this house, and that would include dealing with the smart meter.

I have now learned that my current tariff includes what is called Economy 7, which means that the cost of electricity is a good deal cheaper over night, which I never knew. Which means in the long run it would be cheaper to do my washing at night and hopefully save quite a considerable amount on my electricity bill. Goodness knows why I haven't discovered this fact until now I have no idea. 

Wet Weather and Cancelling Sky

The weather has changed, but I'm not sure whether it's for the best or worst.  It's become wet and a good deal colder.

As I sit in my lounge, in my favourite armchair, with the television on and looking out of the window at the garden, the sun is going in and out. It was raining this morning when I went to the Men's Breakfast at church, but by the time I drove away it had stopped.

Enough of that. I have been meaning to cancel my Sky Television subscription. I'm not getting the use of all those channels. I doubt I watch much more than 3-4 hours per day. I don't know what the average length of time most of their customers spend watching their channels. Most probably if you're a sports fan and you have the additional sports channels, which I don't have, you would watch far more. I also have broadband as well as a Sky Mobile package. I wanted to cancel the television element and switch over to Freeview. For obvious reasons with that you don't have a subscription. Not as many channels but if I don't watch so much it made sense to switch over, but I needed a decent ariel which I don't currently have. When we first moved to this house we had a Freeview set-top box and we had to use an indoor ariel, so the picture quality was not very good, which is the reason we set up a Sky subscription. The alternative, Virgin, was out of the question, because their signal comes via cable, which it appeared from investigation wasn't available in Milton Keynes, somewhat surprising when one considers how new the city is. You would assume that Virgin would have installed a cable system, but there isn't one, so Sky was the only choice. There's never been an ariel at this address, which is the reason we had to use an indoor ariel for the Freeview box we had when we first moved into this address. But to receive a half-decent picture it would be necessary to have an outdoor aerial. I looked around on the internet and found several local companies who could do what I required and one company's website had a section on which you could send messages via email. I left a message, along with my telephone number and they rang me this lunchtime and said that someone would come round to do an assessment and give me a quote.

I got a call from the aerial company and they said they could send someone within ten minutes, was I interested? I said I was and the engineer came in a van with a large ladder on top. He came in and had a look at my television and went out to look at the wall outside the lounge. He gave me a quote and then said he could install the ariel immediately, so I agreed, I would like the work done. The next problem was getting his ladders into the house and through to the garden. The only way was through the kitchen window. The aerial had to have a long metal pole attached onto the wall with brackets. I'm surprised how high it was up, compared with those aerials attached to the neighbouring houses.

The engineer checked that there was a signal reaching my television. When you first use Freeview you have to set up the tuner, which is built into my set and the various channels have to be scanned, rather like downloading apps and other software from the internet. I presume they are downloaded from the television transmitter. This took about ten minutes and then the set was up and running. Unlike the Sky Q box, you can't record or watch catch-up services such as BBC iPlayer, so I intend buying a set-top box which has the Freeview channels and connects to the internet via wi-fi. I have quite a few Nectar points as well as Argos vouchers owed me from doing on-line surveys, and, as I write, these are on order and should arrive within a week, so I can go and buy the Panasonic Freeview box I have seen on the Argos website. As Sainsbury's owns Argos and Nectar, I can use the Nectar points and Argos vouchers to pay for part of the cost of the set-top box.

Once I was set up with Freeview and the aerial was working successfully, I then had to ring Sky to give them the news that I was ditching their television service. It wasn't long before I had got through and explaining why I was cancelling the television subscription. I have managed to do a good deal with the rest of the package because I have their broadband, landline and mobile. I have got the broadband down to £28 a month and the mobile data package has increased, in fact double what it was and still the same price as it was for half the amount of data, all for £19.50. How did I manage that? The call-centre tried to get me to continue with the Sky television element, for £45 for 18 months, but, no, I had made my decision to cancel it and go over to Freeview. With a Freeview Play set-top box, which I intend to get, you can have all the catch-up services, such as BBC iPlayer and even Netflix, which I already have an account with, so I don't loose the ability to record and playback all those services and without having to pay a subscription. I think one of the things that annoys me with Sky is the amount of advertising that their programming has. I was under the impression that once you paid a subscription you didn't have to endure endless advertising. At least that's not the case with Netflix. I realise that Sky is a commercial operation, like ITV, and depends on advertising for some of it's income, but they show them so frequently that it's so annoying.

Problems With Sky

We've been with Sky for a few years now. We originally had Sky when we lived in Crownhill. Then we had to move from that house (full details in an earlier blog post.) to this house. We opted for Freeview. More out of necessity rather than choice, because there was no Sky dish at this address. Neither was there a decent out-door ariel, which you needed if you were to receive a decent signal from Freeview. We had a Freeview set-top box and had an indoor ariel, but the picture quality was very poor. We did an on-line search through a price comparison site in an attempt to find an alternative television provider. We had intended to set up a Virgin media account, but soon discovered that we couldn't have one basically because Virgin, which is a cable company, wasn't available in Milton Keynes, which seemed a bit strange, considering that the place is so modern, you would imagine that it would have been cabled when the place was built. So we didn't have much of a choice but to go with Sky. We also wanted to switch our internet provider as well as having a land-line telephone, so we decided to have all of these services with one provider. Also, with Freeview, even if there was a decent enough signal, their service was (and probably still is) fairly basic, to say the least. You get BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4 and a handful of what can best be called 'cast-off' channels. All very well if you don't want to pay for a subscription. We wanted to be able to watch a wider range of programmes and Sky was beginning to branch out and make it's own shows. As I'm not very interested in sport,  and neither is Carol, if it comes to that, football in particular, there seemed no point in having any of the sports channels at additional cost. We felt we were missing out as there are exclusive channels they have which Freeview and Virgin don't provide. Such as Sky Arts (at that time they had two Arts channels.) Which is why we set up a Sky account and had a Sky + box as well as internet and landline telephone. It makes it simpler if you have all these services from one provider, meaning only one direct debit payment each month.

We upgraded our Sky service to Sky Q fairly recently. We wanted to have a television in our bedroom, so chose to have a multi-screen service, which means we have the main Sky Q box in the lounge. It is connected via wifi (the router is in the hall near the telephone socket.) We bought an HD television just before we got the new Sky contract sorted out. It was a 39 inch Toshiba. But it didn't last long. It failed to work and it seemed we were going to be without television for a while until we could afford a replacement. I still can't believe that set only lasted four years at most. We now have a 43 inch Hitachi and, quite honestly, it's a better set, which, like the old Toshiba, has a built-in DVD player.

So, why have I waffled on for two paragraphs? Where is all this leading? Well, the other day Carol mentioned that she couldn't get some of the channels to work. You'd get a 'no satellite signal' message come up. BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4 and 5 appeared fine, which was odd, because if they worked, why not the Sky subscription channels, such as Sky1, Sky Atlantic and the Sky Arts channel? I eventually rang the sky helpline and the on-line man ran me through some self-help instructions, the usual range of options to re-set and re-boot the Sky Q box, but nothing worked. Those channels would not work. We have booked an appointment to have an engineer come and sort the thing out on Saturday afternoon, so, hopefully, it will be back to normal after then.

I'm intrigued by the automated telephone system Sky has when you ring their helpline. It's voice-activated for a lot of the menu when you first call. I think it might put some people off ringing at all, those who don't like using automated systems. But the voice they use is quite realistic, which is probably why it might be off-putting. But I soon got through to a human and there wasn't the usual long wait you often get with call-centres and then listening to awful music for what seems like hours and hours.

Frustrating Hospicom Television Service

Carol is stuck in hospital, as you will be aware, and as a result she is finding it increasingly more and more boring as the days go by. I am perfectly aware that you are there to be made better, but it seems really unfair that you are not allowed to have access to television, even if it's to alleviate the boredom. I remember when I was in hospital there was a television on the ward even if it had the basic channels, which today it would be Freeview, which requires no subscription. But in Milton Keynes Hospital they have what is called Hospicom, which is fed into the wards via a unit which is on a wall-mounted device which you can pull down so that you can view from the comfort of your bed. This unit also includes a telephone, no doubt a bit defunct today when everyone has their own personal mobile phone.

This service is not free to use. So what's new? In order to use the system you need to purchase a card from one of the cash machines which are dotted around the corridors of the hospital. Carol wanted to watch something this afternoon and she loves The Chase which is a gameshow on ITV in the afternoon. So I went out of the ward in an attempt to find one of the cash machines and so get a card to operate this television system. I walked some considerable distance and found a machine and then found it would only take cash, either coins or notes. I had no cash of any description in my wallet so had to walk all the way back to the hospital entrance where there was an A.T.M. machine. Having walked all the way to this machine I had to return to the machine nearest to the ward where Carol is a patient. I then put one of the £10 notes into the machine, but it was rejected. I tried it several more times as I thought perhaps it had to be inserted in a different way. But how many different variations are there with regards inserting a £10 note into such a device? Perhaps not many. It then occurred to me that perhaps the machine didn't take the new £10 notes. I tried a £5 note, but again no job. I was getting somewhat frustrated and found another machine, but this would not accept the notes. I asked a member of staff where there might be a working machine and was directed to one on the lower floor, but this one turned out to be 'out of order.' So I gave up trying and returned to Carol on Ward 20, but why on earth are these machines out of order or why do they not accept the new £10 notes? They should be up-dated to take the new notes.

I don't usually add more to a blog once it's published, but for once I'll make an exception. Carol's friend Pauline visited again last night and she managed to get a card for the Hospicom system for Carol. When I came in on Thursday morning I had enough in £1 coins to be able to top up the card so Carol could watch television. It apparently costs £5 a day, so I walked to the nearest vending machine which was along the corridor from Ward 20. It was a real effort to insert each coins separately and thus manage to top up the card to £10. But on completing the transaction (SO long-winded. You couldn't put all the coins in at once, only one at a time.) At the end the digital read-out told me there was £6 on the card, which made me wonder there the lost £4 had gone. Very odd. On returning to the ward I went into the side room where Carol is and told her and one of the nurses told me a representative from Hospicom was in the ward, so I told her and she managed to ring the company base and the remaining £4 was duly added to the total on the card. so things were rectified and all were happy, but what a palaver and bother! Why is this thing so complicated? Why can't you pay using a debit or credit card, similar to one of the options when you pay for parking or other similar transactions? Why do you have to put the coins in one by one and not all together? No rhyme or reason.

Further Television Annoyances

O.K., so I'm going to mention even more things which annoy me about television. You may be asking, 'surely there can't be any more?' Well, you are wrong, sorry to have to tell you. 'So,' you are going to tell me, 'how come you don't just find something else to watch, with somewhere in the region of 250 channels on Sky and probably 30-40 if you have Freeview. Or you could read a book or find some other pastime to keep you entertained.

This time, I get annoyed by the strange camera angles employed in some programmes. The picture at a peculiar angle, or, the camera being spun round to make you feel sick. Why do directors of such programmes have to resort to this sort of thing? Because they can. Another thing I hate is BIG CLOSE-UPS. For no better reason, again, because they can.

I really detest 'Strictly Come Dancing.' It's not the dancing, which, in general is really entertaining. It's the ballyhoo which surrounds it which annoys me. The fact that they use 'celebrities,' which, as a term to describe the contestants is annoying, the amount of space taken up in the press as a result, every little thing that gets mentioned by the judges and any slight hiccough gets a full-page spread in the likes of The Sun or Mirror or even Daily Mail. I hate the fact that the audience has to clap along with the music. It's so infantile and pathetic, I don't think children in a Primary School would behave like they do. Then, all the over-the-top cheering and noise they make. We attempted to get tickets to this show over several years, but never managed to. But, on reflection, I'm glad we didn't because I don't think I'd want to have to clap along to the music if I'd been in the audience. Can the BBC at least be honest and tell us which bits of this show are genuinely live and which pre-recorded? I imagine the opening dances done by the professionals are pre-recorded as well as the bits with the guests.

Why can't they have the results programme on the Saturday? Is this show pre-recorded? I reckon it is, because I can't believe they'd send the audience home after the Saturday show and then have them back on a Sunday. Just seems unlikely. I reckon it's recorded after the live Saturday show. For a start, they'd have to get the celebrities re-dressed and re-made up for the results show. I wish they'd just stop pretending all this is live when it's quite obviously not. I think also that the cost of production staff on a Sunday would be a reason for not having this show live, what with the cost of overtime etc etc.

Eye-Test and Sky Upgrade

Last Friday I had my eyes tested. I haven't had an eye test for quite a while. You're recommended to have this done every two years at the most. It is well over two years. When Carol and I went into the Milton Keynes Central Shopping Centre a few weeks ago we managed to go into the Boot's opticians and booked both of us for eye tests. Carol's is this Friday, after work. I don't mind having my eyes tested, but the only bit I don't like is when they more or less clamp your head into this machine and you have to look at a small green dot of light and then they shoot a jet of air onto your eyeball. It has something to do with detecting pressure of your eyeball which will show up any deficiencies or other. I'm not sure what. But just as the jet of air strikes it's a natural thing to blink and it took several attempts to get the test done. Really don't like it. Probably not as bad as giving blood, but it has to be done. Then, when you go into the main testing room you do a test which shows how good your peripheral  sight is. You have to look directly at a red dot and then they turn on and off white blobs of light and you have to press a button when the lights come on. I passed this with no problems. Anyway, it turns out that my distance vision has improved and officially I shouldn't need to wear glasses to drive. I'm somewhat amazed as I would have expected my sight to have deteriorated as I get older, but apparently not. My left eyes require lenses to adjust my sight for close reading. So, not as bad as expected. I will have to wait until next month to have new glasses made up and I'm having varifocal lenses made so I can see distance and close-up with one pair of glasses. They will cost in the region of £250.

Yesterday we had our Sky television package upgraded to what is called Sky Q. It comes with the latest Sky box, recorder and broadband router, and we also have a television in our bedroom. I bought a small HD television in Sainsbury's the other week and the whole system includes a mini Sky box so you can have all the Sky channels on two sets. A vast improvement on the old Sky+ box and superior picture quality. We had considered putting the set which is in the lounge upstairs and getting a slightly wider screen set to go in the lounge, but on going to look at sets we decided that a bigger set wasn't really required. If it's too big it would just dominate what is a fairly small lounge. Which is why we went for the 20 inch set for the bedroom and left the original 32-inch set where it has always been in the lounge.

A few years ago we decided we wanted to improve our television system. When we moved to this house, which must be around 5-6 years ago, we had Freeview, which comes through a conventional television ariel. We didn't have access to a decent outdoor ariel, so we had to make do with a rather inefficient indoor ariel which sat on top of the television.  The quality of the television picture was not very good as a result.  So, around three years ago, we decided to look at having a new television provider. We imagined we could choose between perhaps two, for example, Virgin and Sky. It turned out that we couldn't have Virgin because that comes through cable and apparently Milton Keynes doesn't have the cable infrastructure. Quite a surprise when you consider that Milton Keynes is such a modern city, no more than 50 years old. I would have imagined that there would have been a cable system in place when the city was built originally, but apparently not. So we had no choice but to get a Sky multichannel package. We also wanted to change our broadband internet  provider, having been TalkTalk customers and not finding them a very good company. Which is why we had Sky providing television, broadband as well as our landline telephone service.

TalkTalk Trouble

We have been customers of Talk Talk for around 3-4 years. We have broadband and landline telephone with them. It is easier to have both as it means you only have one bill. We have been considering changing providers for some time and had learned that our contract with TalkTalk would come to an end in either January-February next year. We have Freeview as our television provider, but we don't have an outdoor aerial and have to resort to using a somewhat poor-quality indoor one which means our picture quality is poor. It has a tendency to freeze up and at times goes pixelated, which can make watching television really impossible. We would like to have a multi-channel provider such as Sky or Virgin. But we weren't sure which provider to go for and accepted that we couldn't change either our broadband/telephone landline provider until early2014 when the TalkTalk contract came to an end or take on the extra multi-channel service until then. We then got a letter from TalkTalk, which came out of the blue last Saturday, informing us that their service costs would soon increase, and if we did not decide to continue using them as a phone/broadband provider we had 30 days to change to a new provider without incurring any early-contract ending fee. So, as a response to this letter we began to look around for a new provider. At first we had considered Virgin, with a broadband, multi-channel and landline telephone package a possibility. We then discovered that we couldn't have a Virgin Media package for the simple fact that there is no cable installed in the Milton Keynes area, as their service comes through cable. This is something of a shock as I had imagined that a modern city such as Milton Keynes would have been covered by cable, possibly being one of the first cities in Britain to be cabled. But no. We then decided to try Sky (we were with them at our other house in Crownhill, but cancelled the contract due to financial problems which I don't intend discussing here.) We rang their number and have now got a contract organised and they are coming to install the dish and set up the Sky Plus box tomorrow (Friday).
Then yesterday we got a call from Talk Talk. Apparently Sky have got in contact with them to tell them we are changing our provider to them. I was asked, by a surprisingly very rude call-centre agent, why we were changing, who our new provider was and what were they charging? We said we wanted to include multi-channel television in the package, and we were told by the TalkTalk agent that they could provide a package, but we were unaware of this. I have to say their customer service is really poor, they don't seem to know anything about the letter we got telling us we don't need to pay the cancellation fee. So, it's a case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. 
We have had a couple of  further letters from TalkTalk, which virtually contradict the earlier on telling us we don't need to pay a cancellation charge if we change providers within 30 days. One says we'll have to pay around £15 for every month left of the contract. The TalkTalk agent we spoke to yesterday seemed to suggest we would have to pay the cancellation fee. So, why did they send the first letter?And today another letter came from them saying we needed a code to transfer the phone/broadband. On phoning I was asked why we were moving our account. I refused to say. And we now don't need the code to transfer accounts to Sky. Why do they need to know. And I got an email this morning with a survey to rate the TalkTalk agent's performance. I gave a very low score, as you may have guessed. So, you can see why I would never recommend TalkTalk as an internet/broadband/telephone provider.
There was one other issue with TalkTalk. When the account was originally set up we paid by Direct Debit, as with most services. It's the easiest way to pay most regular bills. You aren't likely to forget and it's generally cheaper than paying by cash or card.
The only problem was the time of the month it goes out of your account. It would have been better at the beginning of the month, as that's when we are paid, so, logically, there will be cash there to pay bills, such as Council Tax, water, etc, etc. But, no, for some unaccountable reason, best known only to themselves,it had to come out on or around the 20th of each month, by which time there probably isn't sufficient funds in the account to cover the Direct Debit payment. This happened a couple of times and as  result meant we incurred an unauthorised overdraft payment.  I then had to ring TalkTalk and attempted to get them to move the date the D.D. was taken to the beginning of the month, but no amount of trying would get them move it. So I had no alternative each month to either pay using my debit card on line or ring up, which meant we had to pay a good deal more than if we'd paid by Direct Debit, which, over a year, was around £35.