Downs and ups

Head Rambles Posted on by 4

Yesterday was a bit of a day.

It started when the phone rang. This made me jump as, if you remember, our phone doesn’t work. The caller was from Eircom saying he had fixed our phone fault. Brilliant! I thanked him and that was that.

Except that it wasn’t.

I quickly discovered I had a phone but now the broadband was gone. Dead. Deceased. It was no more. I rang Eircom Man [when he phoned me of course I noted his mobile number] and told him the glad tidings. He muttered some very rude things and said he’d call back.

Call back he did. He came in and started messing around in my fantastic web of wires and cables all tangled up on the floor. After a lot of mutterings and several phone calls to various sections of Eircom he gleefully announced that he had to go to a meeting and that my broadband would be back imminently as someone else was working on it from some deep dungeon or other. He left.

A while later, I checked. My broadband was back. All was not well however as broadband was more very narrowband. I was only getting 6 when I should be getting at least 75. Bugger. I phoned Eircom Man. He said I was wrong. He said he had checked my speed and said I was fine. I said I had checked my speed and I was not fine. Impasse.

I had to go out then to bring Penny to the vet. When we arrived there she realised she had been had, as she thought we were going to the village. She demonstrated her displeasure by puking in the car park. I dragged her into the surgery whereupon she puked on their floor. Anyhows she had her monthly injection and a checkup and we left a lot lighter financially.

My normal route back from the vet is closed for some reason and this involves a major detour via the motorway where of course I got stuck in heavy traffic. I was crawling along inching towards my motorway exit when I realised all was not well. There was a stench, nay, a miasma. I couldn’t breathe. I had to open all the windows. It was foul as if the very bowels of hell had opened. I got home to discover that Penny had shat all over the back seat and herself. Fuck!

I cleaned the car as best I could and washed Penny down. She didn’t like that. She wasn’t having a good day, but then nor was I. I checked my broadband to see if a miracle had happened. It hadn’t. It was still stuck on 6. I gave up.

Much later I checked my broadband again as I am a firm believer in miracles. 75! Another miracle!

I then discovered that Dick Puddlecote is back.

Life ain’t too bad after all.

My imagination, Eircom Man?
 

Phaulty Fones

Head Rambles Posted on by  

I took my life in my hands this morning.

I phoned Eircom.

Now Eircom [or “eir” with a lower case e as they have rebranded themselves] are famous in Ireland for being a tricky bunch of lads to deal with so the prospect of phoning them didn’t exactly fill me with relish. However our phone has gone distinctly wonky so there was no alternative. If I tried to get a line out, first my phone displayed “line in use” [which it isn’t] and then a crackly silence. If I try phoning home from my mobile I hear the dialing tone on the mobile but deafening silence off the landline. The broadband on the other hand is working perfectly and that uses the same cable. Weird.

So I made myself a large mug of tea, stoked up a couple of pipes, made some sandwiches and said my fond farewell to Herself before diving into the rabbit-hole that is Eircom Support [or eir support?]. One never knows in advance whether one is going to survive unscathed from ringing them, how long one will be absent or indeed if one is going to transport into a different era.

Naturally I was plunged into a series of menus where I had to enter my phone number and answer a series of options. Eventually a cheery voice told me there was a queue and my call would be answered in twenty minutes or so. It then switched to a horrible distorted cacophony of noise that I assumed was supposed to be jazz. *sigh*

I had half dozed off when a chap answered. Of Indian Sub-Continent extraction, of course. In fairness, his English was excellent. He asked for my account number. Bugger! I forgot that bit and started frantically logging into my account. Never mind, says he and he proceeded to ask my birth date, my name and address. I was able to answer those without referring to any documentation. Anyway by then I had found my account number. He was very apologetic about asking me to verify myself and launched into a speech about security. I told him that was fine, that I understood perfectly and was happy to answer his questions. He apologised again and said he had to be sure I was who I said I was. I assured him that I am who I say I am but he then launched into an explanation of how I might be someone else.

Once I had convinced him that I was in fact me we got onto the subject of the fault. I explained the situation as best I could without being too long-winded. He hummed. I guessed what his next question was going to be and forestalled him by explaining that I had recently upgraded my home phone but had tried resorting the the old one with the same resulting problem. ‘Oh’,’ says he, ‘I was just going to ask if you had tried another phone’. I’m good at mind reading.

Having established that the fault was on their side of the box he announced he was going to do a series of tests. I have no idea what he was doing, but he was a mutterer so I got loads of ‘er’, ‘oh’, ‘okay’, ‘hmmm’ and all the other sounds of someone thinking. After quite a while of these noises he asked me to unplug my landline phone which I did. He then announced he was going to repeat his tests. Lots more brain noises.

He eventually announced that there was a fault.

Well, slap me with a wet kipper!

He told me a bloke would call out as the fault was up here somewhere. It will be two days, says he. But it might be before that or even after.

That’s good to know.

I like precision.

 

The Late Late Toy Show

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Last night was Toy Show night.

For any foreign [i.e. not Irish] readers I should explain that this strange phenomenon hits our televisual machines every year around this time. The Late Late Show has been running here weekly since God was a child and has become a somewhat tedious chat-show. It’s the world’s longest running chat show and I think that record is what keeps them going.

Anyhows, once a year they scrap the normal bland interviews with non-entities and “celebrities” I have never heard of and run The Late Late Toy Show. The studio is done up like a Disney set on steroids and the guests are replaced with kids from around the country. Dozens of them. And they are let run riot amongst the toys and also do their party pieces.

Somewhere in the annals of our constitution or in the Law Library there is a law that states that every Irish person has to watch this show. Kids are encouraged to take over their houses and to compel their parents to watch this two and a half hours of mayhem. Sadly, those of us whose fledglings have flown the nest are also compelled by law to watch. Weird, but it’s only one night a year I suppose.

We were watching the news last night [which precedes the Toy Show] when I got a frantic phone call. It was Daughter in a blind panic saying she couldn’t get RTE on her televisual apparatus. Could I fix it? Or could they come and watch it at The Manor? I agreed to the latter as I couldn’t be arsed to do the former. So within minutes we were invaded by Daughter, Grandson, Granddaughter the Younger and the dog.

We have two televisuals. One is in the main room and one is in the small room where Herself reigns from her electric bed. I switched on the one in my room [which hasn’t been on in ages] and discovered I couldn’t receive RTE on it. I should explain that I had been messing on it a while back setting it up as a Freeview set. That relies on the satellite for the bulk of channels but relies on a digital terrestrial signal for RTE off a separate aerial on the roof. The Roofers must have shifted the roof aerial a bit and the signal kept breaking up.

So everyone piled in to Herself’s room which rapidly filled up with an overflow into the main room. The overflow consisted of myself and the two dogs. Banished from a corner of my own gaff….!

I was actually quite happy with this arrangement as I could play with the dogs for a couple of hours. Though play is rather overstating a lot of petting and tummy tickling. Daughter’s dog is a huge black hairy beast the size of a small horse and is the most gentle and loving of dogs. For some reason she adopted me years ago and always makes a beeline for me and demands cuddles and petting as soon as she arrives. If I make the mistake of ignoring her she just butts my hand with her huge head or plonks a massive hairy paw on my leg. She is literally impossible to ignore. Luckily Penny is used to this and isn’t jealous. Or not much anyway.

They left some time after midnight. A blissful silence descended on The Manor.

Another law states that the Christmas Season has been officially launched once the show airs.

 

Black Friday

Head Rambles Posted on by 9

So today is Person of Colour Day?

No, I’m not going to rant about commercialism or tacky attempts to create a feeding frenzy. There’s no point. I have other polar bears to fry.

We’re watching a series on the televisual box at the moment. It’s a drama on BBC which as dramas go, isn’t too bad if a little confusing. The reason I mention it is that the entire cast [with a very few minor exceptions] consists of blacks negros Equatorials non-whites People of Colour. Why? There is nothing in the general theme of the plot that dictates the ethnicity of the cast so the whole thing is obviously a Politically Correct nod in the direction of “Inclusiveness” and to keep the non-Caucasian happy.

Some time back I noticed this trend. It’s not just on the English channels, it’s also creeping into the Irish ones too. Advertising is the worst. Apparently if you visit a fast food place here in Ireland it’s best if you’re non-white. Non-white families enjoy the fruit of several of our establishments and are even prominently present in our service industry. A casual glance at the advertisements on television would convince you that indigenous Irish are in a distinct minority.

I don’t consider myself to be racist. Granted I have that deeply ingrained primitive instinct to distrust anyone who doesn’t look like me [ask any anthropologist – it’s a survival instinct] but I am educated enough to know that there is a basic humanity in everyone [with a few exceptions]. I treat people as I find them. Provided we can converse reasonably fluently I have no problems with them at all. Local Shop in fact seems to be run by a mix of Orientals and members of the Indian sub-continent. I get along with them very well and I hope they get along with me.

However this constant barrage of obviously foreign faces being pushed in my face is beginning to take effect. It’s like the Alphabet Gender people – I hear too much of their whinging and whining. It’s gone beyond an irritation.

I’m going to have to revisit this racist thing.