How strikingly this contrasts with the suffering inflicted on those parents whose five children, as reported here more than once, were snatched from them last April by London social workers, on suspicions which have since, it appears, turned out to be malicious fabrications.

A council whistleblower has said that, at a recent case conference, the social workers admitted that maybe they had made a mistake, and that the mother they had falsely accused was in fact devoted and blameless. But apparently, because of “press interest” in the case, the officials agreed that the council could not afford the very damaging publicity which might follow if the unhappy children were reunited with their parents. It was therefore vital that the council should continue to justify its actions.

View the original article here

As reported by the US blogs Real Science and Watts Up With That, in a post headed “GISS temperatures out of line with the rest of the world”, the GISS record has in recent months been diverging wildly from the others. While three have shown global temperatures dropping sharply, by as much as 0.3C, the GISS figures (based, despite the link to Nasa, on surface temperatures) have shot up by 0.2C.

Since Dr Hansen first sprang to fame in 1988 for his part in setting off the global warming scare, he has become one of the world’s most outspoken climate activists. He recently appeared in a Nottingham court as defence witness for 20 activists who were found guilty last week of criminal conspiracy for trying to shut down our second largest coal-fired power station. No one familiar with Hansen’s pronouncements in recent years would be surprised by this. Still, it might seem odd that a senior US federal government employee should fly to England to support a bunch of criminals. Nothing like so odd, however, as the way his state-sponsored temperature record is still the one cited by politicians and the media to support their belief that this is the “hottest year in history”.

View the original article here

We might start with the strange affair of the Quarmby Review. Shortly after Philip Hammond became Transport Secretary last May, he commissioned David Quarmby, a former head of the Strategic Rail Authority, to look into how we might avoid a repeat of last winter’s disruption. In July and again in October, Mr Quarmby produced two reports on “The Resilience of England’s Transport System in Winter”; and at the start of this month, after our first major snowfall, Mr Quarmby and two colleagues were asked to produce an “audit” of their earlier findings.

The essence of their message was that they had consulted the Met Office, which advised them that, despite two harsh winters in succession, these were “random events”, the chances of which, after our long previous run of mild winters, were only 20 to one. Similarly, they were told in the summer, the odds against a third such winter were still only 20 to one. So it might not be wise to spend billions of pounds preparing for another “random event”, when its likelihood was so small. Following this logic, if the odds against a hard winter two years ago were only 20 to one, it might have been thought that the odds against a third such “random event” were not 20 to one but 20 x 20 x 20, or 8,000 to one.

What seems completely to have passed Mr Quarmby by, however, is the fact that in these past three years the Met Office’s forecasting record has become a national joke. Ever since it predicted a summer warmer and drier than average in 2007 – followed by some of the worst floods in living memory – its forecasts have been so unerringly wrong that even the chief adviser to our Transport Secretary might have noticed.

The Met Office’s forecasts of warmer-than-average summers and winters have been so consistently at 180 degrees to the truth that, earlier this year, it conceded that it was dropping seasonal forecasting. Hence, last week, the Met Office issued a categorical denial to the Global Warming Policy Foundation that it had made any forecast for this winter. Immediately, however, several blogs, led by Autonomous Mind, produced evidence from the Met Office website that in October it did indeed publish a forecast for December, January and February. This indicated that they would be significantly warmer than last year, and that there was only “a very much smaller chance of average or below-average temperatures”. So the Met Office has not only been caught out yet again getting it horribly wrong (always in the same direction), it was even prepared to deny it had said such a thing at all.

The real question, however, is why has the Met Office become so astonishingly bad at doing the job for which it is paid nearly £200 million a year – in a way which has become so stupendously damaging to our country?

The answer is that in the past 20 years, as can be seen from its website, the Met Office has been hijacked from its proper role to become wholly subservient to its obsession with global warming. (At one time it even changed its name to the Met Office “for Weather and Climate Change”.) This all began when its then-director John Houghton became one of the world’s most influential promoters of the warmist gospel. He, more than anyone else, was responsible for setting up the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and remained at the top of it for 13 years. It was he who, in 1990, launched the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change, closely linked to the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia (CRU), at the centre of last year’s Climategate row, which showed how the little group of scientists at the heart of the IPCC had been prepared to bend their data and to suppress any dissent from warming orthodoxy.

The reason why the Met Office gets its forecasts so hopelessly wrong is that they are based on those same computer models on which the IPCC itself relies to predict the world’s climate in 100 years time. They are programmed on the assumption that, as CO2 rises, so temperatures must inexorably follow. For 17 years this seemed plausible, because the world did appear to be getting warmer. We all became familiar with those warmer winters and earlier springs, which the warmists were quick to exploit to promote their message – as when Dr David Viner of the CRU famously predicted to The Independent in 2000 that “within a few years winter snowfall will be a very rare and exciting event”. (Last week, that article from 10 years ago was the most viewed item on The Independent’s website.)

But in 2007, the computer models got caught out, failing to predict a temporary plunge in global temperatures of 0.7C, more than the net warming of the 20th century. Much of the northern hemisphere suffered what was called in North America “the winter from hell”. Even though temperatures did rise again, in the winter of 2008/9 this happened again, only worse.

The Met Office simply went into denial. Its senior climate change official, Peter Stott, said in March 2009 that the trend towards milder winters was likely to continue. There would not be another winter like 1962/3 “for 1,000 years or more”. Last winter was colder still. And now we have another even more savage “random event”, for which we are even less prepared. (The Taxpayers’ Alliance revealed last week that councils have actually ordered less salt this winter than last.)

The consequences of all this are profound. Those who rule over our lives have been carried off into a cloud-cuckoo-land for which no one was more responsible than the zealots at the Met Office, subordinating all it does to their dotty belief system. Significantly, its chairman, Robert Napier, is not a weatherman but a “climate activist”, previously head of WWF-UK, one of our leading warmist campaigning groups.

At one end of this colossal diversion of national resources, permeating every level of government, we have the hapless Mr Quarmby, who feels obliged to follow the Met Office and advise that the present freeze is a “random event” and calls for no special responses – with the results we see on every side. At the other, fixated by the same belief system, we have our Climate Change Secretary, Chris Huhne, hoping we can somehow keep our lights on and our economy running by spending hundreds of billions of pounds on thousands more windmills.

More than once in the past week, as our power stations have been thrashed way beyond normal peak power demand, the contribution of wind turbines has been so small that it has registered as 0 per cent. (See the website for the New Electricity Trading Arrangements: Google “neta electricity summary page”, and find the table of “source by fuel type”.) At the heart of all this greenie make-believe that has our political class in its thrall has been the hijacking of the Met Office from its proper role. It’s no longer just a national joke: it is turning into a national catastrophe.

View the original article here

As much of the northern hemisphere last week froze under the snows of the fourth unusually cold winter in a row, our ministers, led by David Cameron and Chris Huhne, the Climate Change Secretary, laid out a blueprint that promises to inflict on Britain a social and economic catastrophe unique in the world. They chose this moment to announce what Mr Huhne called “a seismic shift” in Britain’s energy policy, the purpose of which, according to Mr Cameron, is to replace our “clapped-out” electricity supplies by making Britain “the greenest economy in the world”.

The chief driving force of the policy is the EU’s requirement that, within 10 years, 30 per cent of our electricity must come from renewables, mainly through thousands more wind turbines. This would be so expensive that the Government accepts it could only be made economical by massively rigging the market against any form of electricity derived from fossil fuels, such as the coal and gas which were last week supplying more than 80 per cent of our electricity. By a complex new system of regulations, including what in effect will be a tax of £27 a ton on CO2 emissions, the Government thus hopes to make renewables “competitive” with conventional power.

In addition, it will in effect make it impossible to replace the coal-fired power stations that will be forced to close in the next few years under an EU directive, while proposing a hidden subsidy to any new nuclear power stations. (Although, since the EU does not count carbon-free nuclear power as “renewable”, this may well fall foul of its ban on state aid.) All this, Mr Huhne assures us, might lead to a modest rise of £160 a year in the average household energy bill, but in the long run it will make electricity cheaper than if he had not intervened.

So riddled with wishful thinking and contradictions are these proposals that one scarcely knows where to begin. For a start, even if we could hope to build enough windmills to provide, say, 25 per cent of our electricity (10 times the current proportion), this would require not the 10,000 turbines the Government talks of, but more like 25,000, costing well over £200 billion, plus another £100 billion to connect them up to the grid.

At least the Government admits for the first time that the wind doesn’t always blow; so it proposes a Capacity Mechanism to subsidise the building of dozens of gas-fired power stations, to be kept running all the time, emitting CO2, just to provide instant back-up for when the wind drops. More than once on these recent cold, windless days, the contribution of wind to our electricity needs has been as low as 0.1 per cent – so the back-up to all those turbines will cost billions more, doing much to negate any CO2 savings from the turbines when they work. It does not take long to estimate that the capital cost of Mr Huhne’s new energy policy could well be more than £300 billion over 10 years, or £30 billion a year. Since the total wholesale cost of the electricity we used last year was only around £19 billion, this alone would be well on the way to tripling our bills by 2020.

When Mr Cameron talks of wanting to replace our “clapped-out” power supplies, what he should have had in mind was the need to meet the terrifying shortfall due in a few years’ time when we lose those older nuclear and coal-fired power stations which currently suppply 40 per cent of our needs. In a sane world, the Government would be planning to get that infrastructure replaced as a matter of the highest national priority, at a cost of around £100 billion. Instead, it puts forward an incoherent farrago of uncosted policies which, even if they could be put into practice, would cost three times as much, paid for by all of us through our already soaring energy bills. They include no practical proposals to meet that fast-looming energy gap, without which, within five years, we face the prospect of wholesale power cuts, bringing much of Britain’s economy to a halt.

No other country in the world has an energy policy so utterly mad and unworkable. Yet all our major political parties are equally locked into the same self-deceiving bubble of unreality. Any final hope that we might be saved from this absurdly unnecessary disaster seemed last week to vanish, even as the ice and the snow closed in.

View the original article here

Original video

Police said she thought it demanded their involvement because she had used pound coins for the eyes and teaspoons for the arms.

The woman, from Chatham, Kent, has been ”spoken to” by officers to advise her about what constitutes a real emergency.

Kent Police issued a transcript of the ”completely irresponsible” call which they received overnight as they fielded thousands of calls from people because of the sub-zero conditions.

In the call, the woman tells the operator: ”There’s been a theft from outside my house.

”I haven’t been out to check on him for five hours but I went outside for a fag and he’s gone.”

The operator asks ”Who’s gone?” and the woman replies: ”My snowman.

”I thought that with it being icy and there not being anybody about, he’d be safe.”

The incredulous operator asks her: ”Do you mean an ornament?” The woman replies: ”No, a snowman made of snow, I made him myself.

”It ain’t a nice road but you don’t expect anybody to nick your snowman.”

The operator then tells her that it is an emergency line and she should not be ringing it to report the theft of a snowman.

Chief Inspector Simon Black, from Kent Police’s force contact and control centre, said: ”This call could have cost someone’s life if there was a genuine emergency and they couldn’t get through.

”It was completely irresponsible.

”We have spoken to her and advised her what is a 999 call, and this clearly was not.”

Kent Police has received more than 8,000 general and 999 calls in 48 hours, double the number it normally receives.

Mr Black said: ”We do have powers to prosecute people for misusing the 999 system, but in this case the woman genuinely thought this was a theft that she should report because she’d used pound coins for the eyes and teaspoons for the arms.”

View the original article here

The word Adventure can have several definitions :

1. an exciting or very unusual experience.
2. participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises: the spirit of adventure.
3. a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.
4. an experience that can have unexpected outcomes.

Now I view the Think Visibility conferences as having elements of all of these terms.  Whilst I know that the conference is about web “stuff”, I also know I’ll be participating in an event that will be exciting, it can be hazardous (usually to my liver) and that there will be always unexpected things happening (such as blokes walking around the hotel in boxer shorts, sleep walking).

Now the last part – sleepwalkers – can’t be promised this time, but what “can” be promised is a feast of information and insight.  Dom has served up a set of speakers that are well respected, giving you topics including SEO, PR, spammers, affiliate marketing and much more.  Speakers such as Dave Naylor, talking about ranking dominance in any market sector, are well worth the ticket price alone.

But it isn’t just the speakers that give this conference its value.  In my opinion, the Friday and Saturday night parties give you just as much value.  The ability to talk to a wide variety of people, from all walks of life about their interest in “web stuff”, is invaluable.  At Think Visibility 3, I believe I took away more from the Friday night, than from the whole of the Saturday conference – which is not detracting from the conference, as I gained alot of insight from that as well – but the openness of people and their willingness to listen to your ideas and give you honest appraisal and a different angle, was priceless.

So, enough ramblings from me, if you aren’t going, why not?  If you are going, look out for the bald fat lad with a goatee near the bar, chances are it’s me, unless he speaks with a Scottish accent, in which case it’s probably Chris Clarkson :-p

See you all 4th September

1) Virgin Food

Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

'Look at this Richard. Just look at it'

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

'Answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in?'

I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn’t custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.

I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:

"It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing. That's how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this'

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:

'I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it's baffling presentation'

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

'It was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson's face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen'

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:

'Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this'

Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

'Richard...What is that white stuff?'

.

Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours Sincererly

XXXX

* Paul Charles, Virgin’s Director of Corporate Communications, confirmed that Sir Richard Branson had telephoned the author of the letter and had thanked him for his “constructive if tongue-in-cheek” email. Mr Charles said that Virgin was sorry the passenger had not liked the in-flight meals which he said was “award-winning food which is very popular on our Indian routes.”

A real-life customer complaint
letter sent to NTL (to their complaints dept….)

Dear Cretins,
I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as  ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional perogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties – or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading  material as you while away the workingday smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office:

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even  more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website….HOW?
I alleviated the boredom by playing with my t..ticles for a few minutes – an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools – such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem arrived… six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it.
I estimate your internet server’s downtime is roughly 35%… hours between about 6pm -midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers.
I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that no telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman…and several other variations on this theme.
Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important t..ticle-moments to attend to. Frankly I don’t care, it’s far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustration’s in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.
I thought BT were s.it, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of godawful customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That’s why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn’t anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order.
British Telecom – w..nkers though they are – shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver – any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage. I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cats litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit – they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day – may it be the last in you miserable short life, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of *****.

John

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his depositing the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly transfer of funds from my modest savings account, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty-one years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has recently become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan repayments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank, by check, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offense under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.

Please find attached an Application Contact Status form which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Notary Public, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof. In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Please allow me to level the playing field even further. When you call me, you will now have a menu of options on my new voice mail system to choose from.

Please press the buttons as follows:

1. To make an appointment to see me.

2 .To query a missing payment.

3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.

4. To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.

5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.

7. To leave a message on my computer, a password to access my computer is required. Password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorized Contact.

8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 7.

9. To make a general complaint or inquiry. The contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee of $50 to cover the setting up of this new arrangement. Please credit my account after each occasion.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.

Your Humble Client,

* Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your ‘Always’ maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the Leak Guard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I’d probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I’d certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts.

But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can’t tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there’s a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suffered from ‘the curse’? I’m guessing you haven’t. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body.

Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I’ll be transformed into what my husband likes to call ‘an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.’ Isn’t the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers monthly visits from ‘Aunt Flo’. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying, jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it’s a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend’s testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey’s Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy!

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants… Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: ‘Have a Happy Period.’

Are you —— kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness – actual smiling, laughing happiness, is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James?

FYI, unless you’re some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything ‘happy’ about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don’t march down to the local Walgreen’s armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn’t it make more sense to say something that’s actually pertinent, like ‘Put down the Hammer’ or ‘Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong’, or are you just picking on us?

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bull sh*t.

And that’s a promise I will keep. Always!

Best,

* Dear Sir/madam/automated telephone answering service

Having spent the past twenty minutes waiting for someone at Leith police station to pick up a telephone I have decided to abandon the idea and try e-mailing you instead. Perhaps you would be so kind as to pass this message on to your colleagues in Leith by means of smoke signal, carrier pigeon or ouji board.

As I’m writing this e-mail there are eleven failed medical experiments (I think you call them youths) in West Cromwell Street which is just off Commercial Street in Leith. Six of them seem happy enough to play a game which involves kicking a football against an iron gate with the force of a meteorite. This causes an earth shattering CLANG! Which rings throughout the entire building. This game is now in it’s third week and as I am unsure how the scoring system works, I have no idea if it will end any time soon.

The remaining five walking abortions are happily rummaging through several bags of rubbish and items of furniture that someone has so thoughtfully dumped beside the wheelie bins. One of them has found a saw and is setting about a discarded chair like a beaver on speed. I fear that it’s only a matter of time before they turn their limited attention to the bottle of calor gas that is lying on it’s side between the two bins. If they could be relied on to only blow their own arms and legs off then I would happily leave them to it. I would even go so far as to lend them the matches. Unfortunately they are far more likely to blow up half the street with them and I’ve just finished decorating the kitchen.

What I suggest is this. After replying to this e-mail with worthless assurances that the matter is being looked into and will be dealt with, why not leave it until the one night of the year (probably bath night) when there are no mutants around then drive up the street in a panda car before doing a three point turn and disappearing again. This will of course serve no other purpose than to remind us what policemen actually look like.

I trust that when I take a claw-hammer to the skull of one of these throwbacks you’ll do me the same courtesy of giving me a four month head start before coming to arrest me.

I remain sir, your obedient servant

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Mr —-

I have read your e-mail and understand you frustration at the problems caused by youth playing in the area and the problems you have encountered in trying to contact the police. As the Community Beat Officer for your street I would like to extend an offer of discussing the matter fully with you. Should you wish to discuss the matter, please provide contact details (address / telephone number) and when may be suitable.

Regards

PC 387

Community Beat Officer

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Dear PC 387

First of all I would like to thank you for the speedy response to my original e-mail. 16 hours and 38 minutes must be a personal record for Leith Police station and rest assured that I will forward these details to Norris McWhirter for inclusion in his next book.

Secondly I was delighted to hear that our street has it’s own community beat officer. May I be the first to congratulate you on your covert skills. In the five or so years I have lived in West Cromwell Street, I have never seen you. Do you hide up a tree or have you gone deep undercover and infiltrated the gang itself? Are you the one with the acne and the moustache on his forehead or the one with a chin like a wash hand basin? It’s surely only a matter of time before you are head-hunted by MI5.

Whilst I realise that there may be far more serious crimes taking place in Leith such as smoking in a public place or being Muslim without due care and attention, is it too much to ask for a policeman to explain (using words of no more than two syllables at a time) to these t***s that they might want to play their strange football game elsewhere? The pitch behind the Citadel or the one at DK’s are both within spitting distance, as is the bottom of the Leith Dock.

Should you wish to discuss these matters further you should feel free to contact me on 557 0890 If after 25 minutes I have still failed to answer, I’ll buy you a large one in the Compass Bar.

Regards

———

P.S If you think that this is sarcasm, think yourself lucky that you don’t work for the cleansing department.

Dear Mr ********

I refer to your letter dated 30th August 2007 where you advise that you have cancelled my subscription and cleared the outstanding balance on my account. If you had read the letter closely you would have sent the reply to my current address which is at the top of the three letters I have already sent.

Secondly, you advise in your letter that, if I want to talk to you about this situation I should call the number shown. You did not however include a number to call, which is genius if you don’t actually want to talk to me. On calling the main number on the letterhead however, I was advised that you ‘don’t have a number’ and that I should write.

This is a small point perhaps, but as you refer to yourself as ‘Customer Marketing Director’ then surely you should at least lead from the front. That is unless ‘Customer Marketing Director’ at Sky is akin to the Councils ‘Senior Environmental Hygiene Consultant’ – or in other words, the longest serving Bin-man.

Your company has not exactly showered itself in glory regarding customer service, on this particular issue.

Whilst your answer to my third letter seems to indicate that at least you have actually read it this time, it does seem that it was while you were practicing your speed reading. While I commend you on both the practice of such high powered management techniques, and actually getting some parts of the letter correct, I must chastise you for the parts you so obviously missed, like my address.

You advise that you have ‘cleared my account’ and ‘cancelled my subscription’. While this alone is at least a stagger in the right direction, I feel you should put down the Buckfast, hang onto something, and try hard to focus. There are three important points that you seem unable to grasp.

1. I cancelled my subscription on the 13th of April 2004 when I advised Sky that I was moving to my new address. So you may have cancelled a subscription but it was not mine as Sky moved me to my new address, while at the same time cancelling my old subscription, as I no longer owned the house at ******** Road nor camped in the garden.

2. There was no balance of subscriptions for you to clear, for I have had no account with Sky at number 61 ******** Road since selling it. I moved to my new address on the 13th April 2004. Sky themselves moved my boxes and account to this new address, though it is I suppose entirely possible that the 2004 Sky Engineers Impersonators Club Outing were at my house on that very day masquerading as Sky Engineers.

I have also now altered the layout of my new address printed at the top of this letter, though in truth we refer to it now as just our address. However, the letters used are now in bright green, as whoever has been reading them previously, may, I think, be colour-blind.

3. As you have been charging me subscription fees, for the past near four years, for a subscription that I have never had, then surely it is your account that needs to be cleared. I have asked many times for a figure of how much has been deducted from my account over the past four years but again had no answer. It seems you may have inadvertently completely ignored my previous communication by both phone and mail.

Sky as a company has now plummeted to a new level of incompetence that can only to be matched by the Generals of World War 1, when they triumphed with the cunning plan of running directly at hundreds of machine guns, and blowing whistles five minutes before every time they were about to do so. Indeed, on reading your most recent letter, I did in fact struggle for breath at one point, and had to be helped to a chair by a complete stranger. It does seem as if there is a fundamental problem in your ability to comprehend the issues, despite my writing clearly, in English, each and every time.

Perhaps the problem is one of clarity. Perhaps the words themselves are not bright enough to draw your attention. If this is indeed the issue then please forward me a pack of your preferred colour choice of crayon, and I will attempt to make it clear for you.

Joking aside, I feel that this matter has dragged on quite long enough. The matter must be attended to within fourteen days of the date of this letter or I will simply instruct my solicitors to take the appropriate action to recover any funds due to me.

Should you wish to finally put an end to this sorry matter you may reach me, or my husband ****, at the number I have included in this letter. I have actually included my number below and I am not even in Customer Service, let alone reached the lofty heights of Customer Marketing Director, so perhaps you may like to make a mental note for next time you write.

Dear Sir or Madam

Further to my previous telephone conversations, email, and the promise of an answer within 24 hours, as yet I still do not seem to have had any reply?

The possibilities are that you are either just to busy with other BT complaints you have received, or it is just down to the fact that BT rakes in so much money you just cannot be bothered? The second seems the most likely option as you are quick to take the money, but are not so reactive when problems arise.

May I start by confirming that my name is Mr Christopher Mark Archer, a title bestowed upon me by my biological parents on the 1st February 1957. This should not be an easy mistake for BT to make as the name on my bill and any email correspondence is a bit of a give away. However, whenever I manage to actually get through to BT your operatives seem to have the unswerving ability to just pick any combination of my name at random and address me as such.

In brief, my complaints regarding the Broadband option agreed are now as follows:

The bill is incorrect, end of story. The first 3 months are at the lower rate of £7.78, the remaining 15 months are to be charged at £15.65

This was to be done by direct debit, at the time this was believed to be coming out monthly now I find out this is to come out quarterly?

Why can you not get this right or explain the bill properly?

£50 credit was to be applied to my phone bill, not the Broadband bill as has happened. This offer was taken up as per the web site advertisement for any Tiscali user that would like to join BT. On questioning my bill your operative got extremely flustered, continually told me I was wrong but finally implied that the £50 was actually put on as the above initial £7.78 was wrongly priced? Please make your minds up. Do I get £50 off my phone bill or not? If so where is it? Where is my correct bill? What is this £50 credit on my Broadband bill? Will someone please explain in simple English? Do your operatives actually know what they are either doing or talking about?

BT Broadband Talk, I received an email telling me, as this had not been used the service had now been disconnected from my “option”. Why? How do you know I will not be using this in the near future? I want it back and I want it back ASAP. No doubt as this has been removed from my “option” BT will expect some form of “reconnection” fee for this?
Well think on!

Enhanced Broadband speed, yes initially for about a week. From then totally sporadic service. This, and irrespective of any advise given by BT on backing up my P.C. defragging etc etc, any excuse but BTs fault and please excuse me if I’m boring you to death.
Your Broadband has all the speed of a racing slug.
Why is it your people always blame the poor customer stating there is a fault with either this, that or the other bit of our gear?

To give an example I had cause to ring regarding some form of interference that was occurring while on the web. ( probably Alexander Graham Bell spinning in his grave).
To start with I had BT (the phone dept) check the actual phone line, this proved all clear. Then as instructed changed the in-line filters on the incoming lines, still the problem persisted.

At this point I am told by BT Broadband dept, somewhere in another hemisphere, that the problem is my fault with the resulting conversation going something like this:

Your Operative: The phone is too close to the hub causing interference.

Me: No its not its in the other room.

Your Operative: Why is it in the other room?

Me: Because that’s where we want it.

Your Operative: Then you have something else in the room causing the problem.

Me: Such as?

Your Operative: Bad cables.

Me: Don’t think so, I’m an Electrical Engineer by trade with over 35 years experience.

Your Operative: Then you have something running in the background.

Me: Such as? This is a 2 bed bungalow in Cornwall not in a large town or city, only my partner, daughter and myself are here, are you suggesting I to go round and turn off every piece of electrical equipment in the place to prove this point?

Your Operative: Silence…..then. Have you any electromagnetic devices running in the house? (where did he pick this gem up from?)

Me: (being sarcastic) Oh, such as the matter-antimatter reactor I have running in the garage?

Your Operative: (with a sound of triumph in his voice) Yes sir that will be the cause, can you go and turn it off please? (What is he on!!!!)

At this point I lost the will to live, as it seems your operative had no concept of computer technology and was just relying on pure fantasy to answer queries or to just fob me off.

As pure fantasy is the case with BT, I will now indulge you.

You may or may not know of the Psychologist William James? Who postulated the theory that: The multiverse (or meta-universe, metaverse) is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including our universe) that together comprise everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them. The different universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes. The structure of the multiverse, the nature of each universe within it and the relationship between the various constituent universes, depend on the specific multiverse hypothesis considered.

As I have a matter-antimatter reactor running in my garage it must now be clear that due to an accident in the future, a massive “rip” in the space time continuum occurred and I was thrown back not only in time but also through to another parallel universe, as a result I am trying my best to use the technology of today in an attempt to return home. Perhaps I should call E.T.?

As your operative seemed to have some knowledge of the matter-antimatter theory there is a possibility that I may have been too harsh on him and should have listened further.

Obviously with the development on the one hand of safe and practical storage devices (using powerful electro-magnetic containment rings and multisensor feedback), such as the Pionomak and the Plasma Helix, my use of matter-antimatter annihilation would have been understandably proven successful and without any interference to the Broadband supplied, should of course any of the above be available in this time line.

However taking into consideration the lack of such technology in this the 21st Century, it has now become apparent that subsystems associated with a complete beam-core matter-antimatter system, that the radiation shield constructed (for protection from the intense flux of gamma rays) is insufficient and as such interferes with the normal operation of BT Broadband.

Possibly if I had explained this to your man, and with his obvious knowledge of matter-antimatter reactors the outcome would have be settled there and then?

Please take the time to correct me if I’m wrong.

Unfortunately the local library does hold any literature on 23rd Century matter-antimatter engineering, although from the media such places as The British Secret Service, The Pentagon, The Kremlin, Area 51 etc seemed the best bet and I had intended to use my resources to access these areas via my BT Broadband. Had it not been running like a racing slug. (Back to original complaints).

To finalise I believe there are 3 options for me:

1. I can redesign and reconstruct the matter-antimatter reactor into a particle beam transporter (that is if I can get hold of a Heisenberg Compensator) and just “beam” myself away.

2. Using the reactor create unstable matter with distinct gravitational properties, specifically a propensity to condense into quantum singularities. By these means in theory creating an artificial black hole, with the effect to having BT Broadband swallowed up for all of eternity.

3. Await your no doubt interesting reply.

To conclude: If (and I say if) you have taken the effort to read this fully, you are probably wondering what these ramblings have to do in reality with BT Broadband?

Simply put, 24th Century physics and the service BT Broadband provide are both nothing more than pure fantasy.

However, one thing I am clear on is The Sale of Goods Act 1979:

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) states that when a consumer buys goods from a trader they must be: as described; of a satisfactory quality; and fit for any purpose made known at the time of sale to the seller.

My goods are not as described (the bill is incorrect), fit for purpose/of satisfactory quality (broadband speed etc) and I wish to claim a some form of compensation under the Sale of Goods Act 1979 as amended.

On this occasion your most urgent attention is requested.

Mr. C. Archer.

Whilst not technically a complaint letter, it is a series of letters that continues to make me laugh. If you haven’t looked at Davids blog – prepare yourself for a few hours entertainment

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Overdue account

Dear David,
Our records indicate that your account is overdue by the amount of $233.95. If you have already made this payment please contact us within the next 7 days to confirm payment has been applied to your account and is no longer outstanding.
Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles
From: David Thorne
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.37pm
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,
I do not have any money so am sending you this drawing I did of a spider instead. I value the drawing at $233.95 so trust that this settles the matter.
Regards, David.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 10.07am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Overdue account

Dear David,
Thankyou for contacting us. Unfortunately we are unable to accept drawings as payment and your account remains in arrears of $233.95. Please contact us within the next 7 days to confirm payment has been applied to your account and is no longer outstanding.
Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles
From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 10.32am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,
Can I have my drawing of a spider back then please.
Regards, David.
From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 11.42am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Overdue account

Dear David,
You emailed the drawing to me. Do you want me to email it back to you?
Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles
From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 11.56am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,
Yes please.
Regards, David.
From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 12.14pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Overdue account

Attached <spider.gif>

From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 09.22am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Whose spider is that?

Dear Jane,
Are you sure this drawing of a spider is the one I sent you? This spider only has seven legs and I do not feel I would have made such an elementary mistake when I drew it.
Regards, David.
From: Jane Gilles
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.03am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Whose spider is that?

Dear David,
Yes it is the same drawing. I copied and pasted it from the email you sent me on the 8th. David your account is still overdue by the amount of $233.95.
Please make this payment as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles
From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.05am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Automated Out of Office Response

Thankyou for contacting me.
I am currently away on leave, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
Regards, David.
From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.08am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Hello, I am back and have read through your emails and accept that despite missing a leg, that drawing of a spider may indeed be the one I sent you. I realise with hindsight that it is possible you rejected the drawing of a spider due to this obvious limb ommission but did not point it out in an effort to avoid hurting my feelings. As such, I am sending you a revised drawing with the correct number of legs as full payment for any amount outstanding. I trust this will bring the matter to a conclusion.
Regards, David.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Monday 13 Oct 2008 2.51pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Dear David,
As I have stated, we do not accept drawings in lei of money for accounts outstanding. We accept cheque, bank cheque, money order or cash. Please make a payment this week to avoid incurring any additional fees.
Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles
From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 13 Oct 2008 3.17pm
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

I understand and will definitely make a payment this week if I remember. As you have not accepted my second drawing as payment, please return the drawing to me as soon as possible. It was silly of me to assume I could provide you with something of completely no value whatsoever, waste your time and then attach such a large amount to it.
Regards, David.
From: Jane Gilles
Date: Tuesday 14 Oct 2008 11.18am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Attached <spider2.gif>

Click here to view the embedded video.

Had to laugh at this on the BBC today, I bet the proof reader is hanging his/her head in shame LOL

Cook-book misprint costs Australian publishers dear

Penguin said it was “mortified” over the “silly” mistake in its pasta cook-book

An Australian publisher has had to pulp and reprint a cook-book after one recipe listed “salt and freshly ground black people” instead of black pepper.

Penguin Group Australia had to reprint 7,000 copies of Pasta Bible last week, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported.

The reprint cost A$20,000 ($18,000; £12,000), but stock in bookshops will not be recalled as it is “extremely hard” to do so, Penguin said.

The recipe was for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto.

“We’re mortified that this has become an issue of any kind, and why anyone would be offended, we don’t know,” head of publishing Bob Sessions is quoted as saying by the Sydney newspaper.

Penguin said almost every one of the more than 150 recipes in the book listed salt and freshly ground black pepper, but a misprint occurred on just one page.

“When it comes to the proofreader, of course they should have picked it up, but proofreading a cook-book is an extremely difficult task. I find that quite forgivable,” Mr Sessions said.

If anyone complains about the “silly mistake”, they will be given the new version, Penguin said.

Article taken from BBC Website