alwaysperfectlywrite

SO you want to know how I’ve just saved £420?

 Easy! Just take on a giant fuel company at full tilt and show ‘em who’s the boss!

O.K., I’ve probably made Virgin Media/ NTL a lot wealthier in the process but it was certainly worth two long, frustrating and hot-tempered phone calls to get it sorted.

The team who present BBC Radio 4’s “You and Yours” would probably loved to have been flies on the wall when I took on two clerks at the energy giant, E.ON and got a combined £35.00 per month (or £420.00 over the next year) knocked off our electricity and gas direct debit bills.

It happened after we received two badly worded statements (one for each fuel) detailing swingeing hikes respectively of £13.00 and £22.00 per month.

The consumer watchdogs are not  alone in believing that the grossly incompetent, ridiculously overpaid people who run our giant fuel companies are taking cruel advantage of ordinary consumers in this time of increasing recession.

Instead of bearing the welcome tumble in oil prices they’re continuing to raise the cost of heating and lighting  homes and washing, then drying  laundry - matters as basic - and vital - as eating.

They claim that part of their problem is insufficient ’storage’ facilities compared to their European counterparts. Tosh! They just want to please their shareholders and ensure that senior personnel get thwacking annual bonuses.

It’s a pity that not everyone feels able to articulate their grievances but I’m nothing if not brazen and in recent years can justifiably claim to have become a professional complainer.

If you want to find out how … coninue to watch this space!

msniw

Month after month, year after year and with alarmingly increased urgency as the Festive Season approaches, the charities come knocking at our doors.

They appear in person - with old fashioned collection boxes.

They send us ever more artful begging letters.

They whinge at us from call centres.
They try to yank us in through our computer screeens.

Most insidious of all - they attempt to seduce us with unsolicited gifts.

In recent years I’ve been sent:umbrellas, tote bags, pens, personalised address labels, calendars, keyrings.

But beating the lot a couple of weeks ago was a thick, squashy envelope which would not slip through the box when the postman called.

It opened to reveal a bright, beautiful, soft and warming handmade blanket with an accompanying note from the World Relief Mission urging me to help ‘the needy children of Africa’.

Do I really need a gift to be persuaded to give back? Isn’t this a flagrant waste of other donors’ money?

Funds that could be much more usefully used to feed and clothe ‘Apia, Lokwia and Otol’.What do you think?

Drop me a line and let me know.

msniw

Well, hello:

It’s an unaccustomed luxury to have a little doodle during the working morning. But, as my fav. movie critic, BARRY NORMAN is supposed to say: ‘Why not?’

I run a home-based business / office services outfit and often pick-up off-beat clients who would normally shun larger outfits.

One of the sweetest I’ve met for a long-time is a  gentleman in his 70s who suffers terribly with Parkinson’s Disease and has asked me to help him publish some miscellaneous poetry and general thoughts on life.

‘Nebbuch’ (’pity’) as we say in Yiddish; it took the poor fella well over five minutes to stumble down our tiny hallway when he arrived for his first appointment and later, he made three game attempts to get up from the sofa when he wanted to leave.

I tried to make life easier for him and posted him a draft of the initial work to save him at least one visit back, only to discover that the Post Office refused to deliver it, claiming I’d placed insufficient postage on the envelope. O.M.G.!

The media is full to bursting with the miseries of ageing and wasting diseases but watching an individual coping with his difficulties is the best - and I suppose - worst story of all.

Mr. B., a widower, tells me - I had to fairly extract the info. from him - although his family lives fairly close and his neighbours aren’t unhelpful that he fends for himself.

Oh, cruel irony! I know at another gentleman ony a couple of years younger than my client, who works more than full-time; cares for a very sick wife and finds time to work out in the gym several times a week.

Like almost everyone else out there I’ll never understand why ‘bad things happen to good people’.

More about Mr. B. anon.

Time to go out. Bye for now.

msniw.

Hi Y’all

As this site is supposed to be all about ‘living’ (Huh! You call this living’?) I Thought I’d kick off with a little bit about me … and him of course.

 I’m married to ‘Brian the White Van Man’. Yup, you got it. He’s called ‘Brian’ and yup again, we run a white Suzuki Carry Van which he uses to trawl the highways and byways of Bury, Bolton and the little towns and villages of the Lancashire hinterland selling bargain books and gifts to the locals where they work and sometimes play.

We’re unsure whether it’s pre-Xmas madness or if the good folk round here are just downing doubles at The Last Chance Saloon,  but thank heaven they’re buying us up and out as if there were no tomorrow and certainly no recession.

Now, what will happen when we all wake up on 02 Jan. 2009 with a gawd almighty hangover? Will we still decide to spend our way out of trouble, as per the advice of our noble leaders? I’ll let you know then!

See you soon.

msniw