DIARY - "Going on up to the spirits in the SKY"
Date: 2008-01-04 15:09:43
Author: Pat Kent
Last year I had my rant about suppliers....Then it was kitchen suppilers and ALNO in particular, now for fear of upsetting "the supplier's champion" Nigel Waymilk again I want to take up my cudgel against Rupert Murduch's SKY empire.
So many people warned me not to sign up and I didn't take notice,
I didn't even listen to my own voices from my past that reminded me that this serial meglomaniac was the man who stitched up all the News International staff 25 years ago which had me inflamed enough as a principled angry young[ish] man to join the protests.
But I needed a supplier to feed my desire for HD telly, and Virgin, like their internet services and trains could not be relied upon.....Richard Branson is simply the wrong kind of meglomaniac to provide for my HD future.
So I went to SKY.
First they send out a bloke who managed to breath through the most tightly pursed pair of lips I have ever seen. This man could have finished a whole McDonalds thick milk shake in one draw.
"No, you need the special heights team mate - Can't do it, you see it needs to go on the chimney and that there tree's too big."
I suspected that the fact that it was the 23rd December, grey and damp might have had something to do with the real reason he didn't want to bother his arse.
So, I arrange for the special heights team to call...two weeks go by and they 'phone at 7.58 to say they will arrive between 10.00 and 12.00 OK, so, we clear the decks awaiting the arrival of the "Special Heights Team".
They turn up late at 1.45. No apologies, I can tell almost immediately that this "crack" squad aren't going to be installing anything if they can help it.
The senior of the two manages the same elongated intake of breath through clenched lips as his predecessor; like a leaky gas valve...."Shhhhhhhhhh"
"Big tree - Needs to go on the chimney stack - Conservatory's in the way, might be difficult"
Another intake of breath
"I think you need a independent fitter"
[he actually said engineer but as I'm a qualified engineer I refuse to let a bloke with only enough competence to distinguish between a hammer and a screwdriver be called an engineer]
"They'll be able to do it - they don't have the same health and safety regulations as us" he added.
With which he and his Burberry cap wearing, nicotine stinking, knuckle dragging mate of a monkey left.
So, another to add to that list....SKY......
now where did I put Richard Branson's number......
Pat K
P.S. By the way there's a couple of new sketches up on the sketchbook pages.
© Pat Kent 2007/2008 – All rights reserved. Pat Kent exercises his right to be identified as the author.