Welcome to the blog for Ali's Craft Studio by Alison Lloyd. I am a crafter of peelable stained glass designs & handpainted keyrings and I look forward to sharing with you my news direct from Kent (the Garden of England)

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Tuesday 13 July 2010

What a week so far... Whatever Next?

I feel like I have come back from a big void without access to the Internet, problems with SKY (again) and a feeling of what can go wrong, will go wrong!  It is amazing how much you miss the Internet when it isn't there anymore.  The past couple of days have definitely been a case of 'Whatever Next??!'
Whatever Next????

Yesterday, our wireless router decided it didn't want to route anymore (guess the hot weather disagrees with electrics too!)  All was fine in the morning but when I went to check my e-mails at midday.... nothing!

Sometimes the router gets knocked offline by other wireless equipment in the area so a restart isn't uncommon but yesterday after the fifth or sixth restart, reboot, reset and any other re- you could think of it became pretty clear that all was not well.

A call today to tech support at the ISP created more questions than answers (not their fault) as the router appeared to be working and connecting to their server but it wasn't sending the connection to our laptops!  Was it something I said?  I try to be kind to our equipment and talk sweetly to it when it appears a little under the weather but this blatant snub was more than a little frustrating!

To cap it all, this was the last of a run of bad luck - my SKY+ remote died last week (have you ever tried to watch SKY properly without a remote??) and a call to their customer services (??!) resulted in a frustrating morning trying to get a replacement from them.  Finally they agreed but it wouldn't be with me until today - a whole 8 days from the day I called!!  Still, at least the chappy on the phone was kind enough to inform me in great detail about the weather in India so maybe all the money I spent on the call wasn't wasted after all (@@!*!$%) 

I have been like a teenager on Valentine's Day ever since - running expectantly to the door when the postie arrives but every day was a disappointment.  Well, I could take it no more and called SKY again today to find out when this elusive plastic answer to my dreams would arrive.  

Today's calls went as follows:
  • Call 1 - through to a nice lady in Scotland who couldn't understand either why the remote had taken so long to arrive.  I was put on hold so she could investigate.  A couple of minutes later : cut off!! AAARGGH!
  • Call 2 - back to India (no weather report this time so don't ask) to be told that the remote control order had been cancelled as there was no warranty on this piece of equipment - even though, as I gently(ish) pointed out - it was less than 1 month old!!  Solution - I could buy myself a new one for £25!!!   Needless to say, this customer service representative probably now wishes he worked for someone else and that someone else had the pleasure of answering my call!!   A 15-minute rant about what I thought of their company and service seemed appropriate (oh, yes I forgot to mention that I was told that I could contact Customer Relations if I wanted them to override the cancellation - but wait, you can't phone them - you can write to them!) Result: Total frustration, anger and stomping like a toddler around the front room!
Did I mention that the remote control for our TV also doesn't work properly???  There was a lot of getting up and down just to change the volume, change channels, etc. recently - well, actually that isn't strictly true - it was more watching crappy programmes because they followed what we had been watching but just couldn't be bothered to get up and crawl infront of the telly again to find something else to watch.

To cap it all off, I also have a very painful toe at the moment - probably caused by the heat - I won't go into details but it is agony  and not very pretty to look at and definitely not helped by the toddler-tantrum-stomping this morning! (it is infact the most painful toe in the world as I keep telling my husband but he doesn't believe me and thinks I am over-reacting! HMPHF, the very cheek of it!)    I decided that God was against me this week and going back to bed and pulling the covers over my head seemed a good solution!  But then I would probably stub my toe on the bed leg and suffocate knowing my current run of luck!

And so to this afternoon....   I tried to turn the TV off using the broken TV remote - and it worked - twice (I had to have another go just incase it was a fluke)!  So, a challenge had been laid down - two more to go - well, can you believe it, the SKY one followed suit!

Surely, the Internet couldn't suddenly start working too, could it?   Well, as I am able to get online to post this, I guess the answer is clear!  Yes it could!!!  The toe doesn't seem to want to join in this miraculous regeneration but I guess I can live with that for now. (Still the most painful toe in the world....)

So, my message to the Little Devil who has been screwing with the electrics in our house for the past week, wherever you are, listen up...it was a funny joke for a while but seriously - stop it now!!

In anticipation of hopefully not being thrown into the cut-off-from-the-big-wide-world void again tomorrow, I will sign off before everything goes caput again!!

Surely this week has to get better (doesn't it??)....

11 comments:

  1. Brilliant blog post...I was gripped and wanted to read more! Glad you can see the funny side lol

    Mick

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  2. Thanks Mick

    I guess you have to laugh otherwise you would cry! Incase you are interested - the weather in India was raining last week when we were having all that glorious sunshine!!

    I am hoping that the word 'SKY+' doesn't appear again in my blog rantings/postings in future but I won't hold my breath!

    Ali x

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  3. Excellent blog. but you still want to know why your remote wouldn't be replaced after one month. Bad business that one. We ditched Sky in the end and now have freesat. Sorry about your toe.

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  4. Thanks Carol

    It was a replacement box (one of many recently as you know if you have been following my blog posts) and apparently the remote is only covered for one year after you originally sign up as a new customer!

    Seems a bit stupid to me as I am sure they will eventually lose a lot more in cancelled subscriptions than it would cost them in remote controls but there you go!

    Ali x

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  5. Oh dear, sky story not good, internet story, REALLY BAD, I know what you mean, I can't seem to function without it, Linda x

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  6. Sorry to hear your run of bad luck but you related it in such an entertaining way. I must say (and I will put this on CF too) I had exactly the same happen with Sky, except for the painful toe and eventually after 9000 (at least) calls to Sky I got a technician who told me to change the channel on the modem from auto to either channel 1, 6 or 11. I changed to channel 1 and all the intermittent internet fuss stopped. Apparently auto means you can be sharing bandwidth with neighbours or something? Hope you feel better soon! xx

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  7. Fortunately, my broadband is with Virgin Media who are brilliant. I don't think I could cope with dealing with Sky for that too!

    My wireless setting has to be on one of two channels as there are a few other wireless networks around here which can interfere. Once you get the right one, it is pretty reliable.

    Hopefully I have seen the end of technical issues for a while...

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  8. Oh what a terrible time - I know how frustrating it is with no internet...you're cut off from the world! Isolated. It's awful!! REALLY awful!!! I am so upset just reading about this experience of yours. Bless your little heart.

    The toe - EPSOM SALT WATER!! Get it in a panful of warm epsom salt water ASAP...I mean like yesterday...soak it several times a day - it can result in blood poisoning and is very dangerous. Get soaking. Do you have any red streaks going up your foot from it??? I'm really worried. I swear by epsom salt water - even soak splinters in it. I have even sprinkled it on damp toes and put on clean socks for the night...
    watch your toe closely!

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  9. Sorry to hear you had so much trouble with the internet, it just goes to show you that you're better off with the devil you know than the devil you dont know(hubby constantly complaining about virgin media), this was very well written and very entertaining. I am now following you. :)

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  10. Thanks Diana

    Welcome to my little blog family! I have to say that VM have been one of the most reliable providers I have used (been with them for years now) - my old workplace used BT Internet which was a pain in the backside (constantly crashing).

    Hope they are more stable these days....

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  11. Oh dear, what a rotten time. I see you are back now so lets hope you can put it all behind you. Interesting to know how the weather in India was though? LOL.

    Can you now go over and write my blog? I am stuck for something interesting to write about, maybe thats a good thing though.

    Lynda

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Thank you for taking the time to comment on my blog xx