Well, the fun has started in earnest.

In order to get my roof fixed I have to apply for a grant. That’s no problem. The application form is online. I printed it off [all 33 pages].

Naturally things can’t be that simple. We do live in a bureaucracy after all and bureaucracy loves papers and forms. They wanted additional information from me.

The first thing they wanted was a letter from my insurance company saying that they wouldn’t pay anything towards the repairs. No problem. All I had to do was phone and ask for a letter. I dialled the number. Of course I was plunged into a long recording telling me that the call was being recorded for a list of purposes and that I could see their privacy policy if only I logged into their website and a load of shit like that. It then went into a long list of options. I pressed a number. I was promptly plunged back into the same long recording repeating that my call was being recorded for a list of purposes and that I could see their privacy policy if only I logged into their website and a load of shit like that. They came up with a different menu. I pressed the button and got a different recording about all their operators being busy blah blah. Then came the crappy music.

A good while later the phone was answered. It was a shit phone line so I had to repeat my account number several times and using the phonetic code for the letters. I wouldn’t mind but the bloke didn’t even sound foreign. I was in the middle of saying what I wanted when the phone went dead. Fuck!

I repeated the whole long process and finally got through to the same place but a different bloke and a better line. He told me I was on to the wrong department and that he would transfer me. The phone rang for a while and then went to an answering machine. Fuck!

I went through the whole ghastly process yet again but this time selected a different option on the menu. More long messages and more shitty music. Then the phone was answered by a young [sounding] girl. I told her what I wanted and why I wanted it and she said no problem at all, and she’d bang a letter in the post for me. Apparently she gets lots of these requests which is surprising as most people would hang themselves after trying unsuccessfully to get through their phone system.

At last I could tick that one off my list

My next port of call was Revenue. But that’s a story in itself.

Watch this space.