What part of "I'm not coming back" don't you understand?

Disgraceful behaviour from my former TV provider this week.

I counted a total of 21 logged calls to my mobile over the past few days from the same number which turned out to belong to my former TV provider.  Luckily I have a call blocker on my phone which means that they didn't get through.

The calls are coming from the same company which put me through an inquisition just 3-4 months ago when I contacted them to advise that I was leaving to join another provider.  I was on the phone for almost an hour, during which time I was offered numerous half price deals to tempt me to stay, given that I had been such a loyal customer for so many years.  My response was that if my loyalty was so valued, why had I not been offered these deals beforehand?

My gripe is not with the workers in the contact centres who have scripts to read, certain questions to ask and above all, targets to meet.  But it would be nice if someone's decision was respected when they decided to move on.

There may come a time when I'll have had enough of my current provider.  But right now, I'm perfectly happy and have no plans to change.  Try telling that to my "telly ex" which continues to bombard me with "come back" special offers and the torrent of phone calls.   Just what part of "I'm not coming back" don't you understand?

Those pre-switching blues

Forgive me for feeling more than a little agitated tonight, but as the date of the "big switch" is approaching I thought it was worth a blog post.

Having recently made the decision to "future-proof" my television, phone and broadband service, I'm also well aware that I'm taking a bit of a risk.  If mum was still here she would be fighting this with a vengeance.  She was always of the view that you should have separate services rather than combine all services from one provider.  However I have had problems with my TV recordings over recent months and after years of a good-but-not-great broadband service, I felt that the time was right to move on.

I want to embrace new ways of watching television and recently realised that my broadband was clearly not up to the job, so after 18 years (!) I'm finally parting with my ISP and going with a new provider.  It's a bittersweet parting of the ways as I can honestly say that over that time I've been lucky enough to have a very reliable internet connection, firstly as dial-up and then on to broadband, with only a couple of exceptions. Which isn't bad for 18 years.  But I now need to upgrade.

Long before "on demand" viewing became a thing, I was recording TV shows and watching them at a more suitable time, firstly on video and then on HDD and TV recorder.  Now, I'm impressed by the idea of watching TV on demand in new ways: either via the internet or on catch-up - with a view towards eventually subscribing to Netflix - and I'll get the best out of that with a high-speed broadband connection.  And then of course there is the highlight of every year, Eurovision national finals season, so I'm making sure that my high speed broadband is up to scratch before the 2017 adventure begins.

But my life being what it is, I'm well aware that the course of installation doesn't always run smoothly. In the bigger scheme of things I suppose this is a pretty irrelevant thing to get worried about but I'm naturally feeling very anxious. Being late to the "switching" party, with the same providers for years, I can only hope that in these "always on" days that there are no problems and I'm not left without a service for too long.

I've spend recent weeks getting my backlog of recordings down and realised that I need to get better at not letting recordings mount up.  And for everything else, that will be taken care of by my DVD box set Christmas wish list :)  So much for reducing the backlog!

Anyway I will see you on the other side, hopefully in a few days all being well!

Goodbye CRT, hello LED

It was the end of an era this week at EuropeCrazy HQ, as we finally took the great leap forward into the digital TV revolution. Our trusty old 28" flat screen CRT TV...

which was once state of the art back in the day, made way for a 37" LED TV...

It wasn't a spur of the moment decision but it's been researched for ages, and whilst I'm in 'life's too short' mode, now is as good a time as any to take that step.

It's not just a flat screen TV, it's one of these "smart tvs" which you can get BBC iPlayer and YouTube on. And it's got Freeview HD as well.

It is extremely fab and I hope we get as many happy viewing years out of our new TV as our old one gave us. I'll just need to tear myself away from it to write a few blog posts now and then :)

Hilarious Irish TV ad

This is an ad for One Direct car insurance which I saw on TV whilst over in Dublin, I still think the guy's singing is side-splittingly hilarious - can we swap him for the Go Compare guy???

When I am through with you

These showery days and chilly nights make it feel like summer is over :( however two days off work is good no matter what time of year it is. Apart from the retail therapy mentioned in the previous post, my long weekend also involved some decluttering and charity bagging, and actually finishing a book for a change - Mark Cavendish's "Boy Racer". Oh, and I've even made serious inroads into the "Damages" season 1 boxset at last, currently on loan from faithful travelling companion. This programme is very addictive viewing, and after each episode I just want to see the next one. Also, the theme tune (which gives this post its title) is very good too.

I'm certainly not stuck for things to do during this blogging break. Work, rest, and play. On Monday I even slotted in a game of Beehive Bedlam at teatime and got to level 13 then decided to quit whilst I was ahead. Not for me the complicated world of modern gaming (although my fondness for The Sims will never die) but give me Bloobs or Beehive Bedlam and I'll be happy for the rest of the day.