"Surprised to be contacted by the rudest, most aggressive human being in the world"

Some emails just make you laugh out loud. MSE was copied in on Gary’s complaint letter to his mobile provider below. While I should caution that this type of rhetoric isn’t as good as a polite, but firm letter – I suspect at least the sheer, cathartic release made Gary feel better and it reflects the frustration we’ve all felt at some point.

Though a wee plea, however frustrated you are, companies’ call centre staff are just pawns in the game, don’t fire abuse at them, they’re rarely responsible for their company’s faults.

The company’s identity has been deleted and some minor edits have been made – thanks to Gary for his permission to publish his complaint.

Good evening,

I write regarding our terrible customer experience, something which your company sadly doesn’t care about.

Due to awful problems with our dropped signal connection issues I asked for help from your company.

I was surprised to be contacted back by the rudest, most aggressive human being in the world in the form of Bob from your so called executive team.

May I suggest that the way to help customers experiencing issues isn’t to talk loudly over them, interrupt them whilst speaking, repeatedly call them by the wrong name, or be an all-round useless waste of space who deserves to be placed over his mother’s knee and given a good old fashioned smacking.

What we were told by my friend Bob, is that we were NOT having an issue. Don’t you just love being called a liar. My suggestion to Bob that your company may visit our premises (I would provide refreshments if I’m in a good mood) was simply ignored. What I’ll also do now is screen shot every single time for the rest of our contract whenever the connection on our equipment fails – so you can then judge for yourself if we are having problems.

I needed to go through the most stringent security test ever – including snipers, lie detectors and truth serum (even though I provided the password and have access to the account). Now each and every time you contact me, you will be required to pass security questions to check you are who you say you are.

Please therefore provide me with the answers to the following questions so I can issue you with a password:

1. Shoe size.
2. The length in centimetres of the nail on your left index finger.
3. Your favourite member of the Spice Girls.

The password I provide to you will be 36 letters and numbers in total and will require full memorised citation before we allow any communication on the account. Please don’t simply read it out  - I will know if you’re doing that and will be deeply upset.

Bob did inform me that his manager would contact me back on Monday 20th – it’s now almost half eight on Tuesday evening and we are still awaiting contact. Therefore if you do choose to contact us we will ensure that you are hung up on and not called back, to replicate the experience I have received.

Moving forward there are two semblances of comfort I do take. The first is I know referring you to the ombudsman is at your cost, so as we’re out of pocket due to your shoddy device, you will be throwing any profit you do gain from us straight back down the drain.

Secondly, I will  make it my mission to ensure every single social networking site is aware of the experience I go through, be that Facebook, Twitter or through the sign I’m busy making to display outside of my house.

Thanks,

Gary."

Update Note: Gary’s been in touch… after more shenanigans, the company has agreed to cancel his contract early.

MSE pub quiz - can you beat us?

Last week I challenged you to the pub quiz I’d given the MSE team at our Christmas party. Now as promised, it’s time for the answers…(and as in all good pub quiz tradition, I of course expect you to argue).

Spoiler alert! If you want to have a go at the quiz before seeing the answers, see the MSE Christmas pub quiz 2011 blog.

Answers are in red.

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE ANSWERS.

Martin’s round
(these had to be questions I could answer without needing to look it up)

1.How many points for a ‘K’ in Scrabble? Five
2. What is the name of the flatmate’s Jewish friend in the Big Bang Theory (1 point for first name, and another for last name)? Howard Wallowitz.
3. Which new three letter word starting ‘QI’ was introduced in Scrabble last year? QIN.
4. What word does Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory say when he is doing a practical joke? Clue: I also have a t-shirt with it on. Bazinga.
5. In the official Scrabble dictionary which number of letters has the most words, ie, 2 letter words, 3 letter words, 4 letter words etc.? 9 letter words.
6. If you score three under par in golf, what’s it called? Either a bloody miracle or an albatross.
7. What’s the highest Scrabble score you could get at the end of the game if you’ve only an ‘I’ and a ‘Q’ left, by connecting it with the word ‘BIFF’ anywhere on the board except a treble word score? Sixty-seven.
8. In the towns Northwich, Middlewich and Nantwich what does the ‘wich’ bit indicate? It means it was a brine or salt mining town.
9. Create the longest allowable Scrabble word possible from the following letters ‘euouae’. Euouae (one of the teams got it in the MSE Towers quiz just by writing the letters down as they were read out and not actually having a clue what the answer was).
10. What’s the first name of Superman’s birth mother? Clue: this is the ‘Martin round’. Lara (aka Mrs MSE).

The general knowledge round

1. What is the highest capital city in the world? La Paz, Bolivia.
2. In sport, what year did the English Football Premier League begin? 1992.
3. What does html stand for? Hyper Text Markup Language.
4. This year on English language world Twitter, what was the number one world news story? Mubarak’s resignation.
5. How many sides does a heptagon have? And for a bonus point what is a dodecahedron? Seven (and twelve edges for the bonus).
6. There are four US states that begin with ‘I’, how many can you name (4 pointer)? Indiana, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois.
7. Which drinks company uses a bat as its registered trademark? Bacardi.
8. This year on Twitter, what was the number one #hashtag? #Egypt.
9. Can you name all the planets in the solar system? 1 point for each. (Note: for clarification, if there’s any argument over what is a planet, this is based on the view of the world’s leading physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper (see Round 1)). Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.
10. What colours are the five Olympic rings (5 pointer)? Red, blue, yellow, green, black.

The picture round

1. Gavin & Stacey
2. Elf
3. White Christmas
4. National Lampoons Christmas Vacation
5. The Holiday
6. The Royal Family
7. The Polar Express
8. It’s A Wonderful Life
9. Dr Who
10. Love Actually
11. Miracle on 34th Street
12. How The Grinch Stole Christmas

How did you do?

MSE pub quiz - can you beat us?

How good’s your general knowledge? Can you beat the MSE Team? Last Friday was the MSE Towers’ Christmas party and quiz, so now I want to invite you to take part too and see how you do…

There was hair being pulled out, confusion, befuddlement and some painful moments, and that was just MSE Darren and I writing the quiz questions. There were six rounds in total, but here I’ve picked out just three. It’s one point per correct answer (unless stated) and NO GOOGLING! (I will blog the answers next Monday).

Martin’s round
(these must be questions I can answer without needing to look it up)

1.How many points for a ‘K’ in Scrabble?
2. What is the name of the flatmate’s jewish friend in the Big Bang Theory (1 point for first name, and another for last name)?
3. Which new three letter word starting ‘QI’ was introduced in Scrabble last year?
4. What word does Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory say when he is doing a practical joke? Clue: I also have a t-shirt with it on.
5. In the official Scrabble dictionary which number of letters has the most words, ie, 2 letter words, 3 letter words, 4 letter words etc.?
6. If you score three under par in golf, what’s it called?
7. What’s the highest Scrabble score you could get at the end of the game if you’ve only an ‘I’ and a ‘Q’ left, by connecting it with the word ‘BIFF’ anywhere on the board except a treble word score?
8. In the towns Northwich, Middlewich and Nantwich what does the ‘wich’ bit indicate?
9. Create the longest allowable Scrabble word possible from the following letters ‘euouae’.
10. What’s the first name of Superman’s birth mother? Clue: this is the ‘Martin round’.

The general knowledge round

1. What is the highest capital city in the world?
2. In sport, what year did the English Football Premier League begin?
3. What does html stand for?
4. This year on English language world Twitter, what was the number one world news story?
5. How many sides does a heptagon have? And for a bonus point what is a dodecahedron?
6. There are four US states that begin with ‘I’, how many can you name (4 pointer)?
7. Which drinks company uses a bat as its registered trademark?
8. This year on Twitter, what was the number one #hashtag?
9. Can you name all the planets in the solar system? 1 point for each. (Note: for clarification, if there’s any argument over what is a planet, this is based on the view of the world’s leading physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper (see Round 1)).
10. What colours are the five Olympic rings (5 pointer)?

The picture round

If you want to record your answers, do it via the links below.

Do you wash your hands after going to the loo? – Not in a nightclub!

My wrath about nightclub toilet attendants resurfaced last week as I went to a club with a friend for the first time in an age. In the loo was a man with his fragrances and lollipops, pouncing at every person – providing the wholly unnecessary service of turning the tap on and giving out a paper towel. The result…most men steered clear and left without washing their hands.

The entire concept flies in the face of decent hygiene. While having an attendant may provide slightly cleaner toilets, it creates a much dirtier nightclub (and no, not in a good way). It means in an environment where many are drunk, often with limited aim, they don’t wash their hands, then wander around pawing each other, touching glasses, touching walls, doors handles and more.

Is that really good 21st century practice? I first blogged on this way back in 2005 (see paying for toilets is unhygienic) and I’m sorry to see little seems to have changed. 

Of course there’s no legal obligation to pay these attendants, but it feels at worst threatening and at best discourteous not to. So come on nightclubs, while I suspect it’s a cheap way to have commission remunerated toilet attendants / security, show a little responsibility, at least have one attendant free sink so those who want to wash, but don’t want to pay get the choice.

Am I on my own on this?

Related past blogs

• Why are women too scared to poo?
• Nando’s – the worst designed public toilet I’ve ever seen

Grrrrrr – Scrabble ignoramuses, keep your traps shut

I need a rant. Last night when Mrs MSE and I were on one of our Scrabble dates (2for1 restaurant voucher and Travel Scrabble – I know how to show a girl a good time), an American chap at the next table leant over and said: "You shouldn’t be allowed to use those silly words; you should only use normal words."

People seem to have an inherent need to interfere in Scrabble and this is quite a common comment. Luckily, he said it with a twinkle in his eye, or I’d have told him to bog off.

It’s the frustrating lack of logic in this sentiment that gets my goat. Please tell me what a ‘normal word’ actually is – a doctor may use zygote in everyday speech, a healer chi and a classicist xi. 

With such a discontinuity of vocabularies we therefore need to find a way to police ‘normality’. You could play to the lowest common denominator, leaving the board filled with the, cat, sat, on and mat. 

Or, how about this: you could consistently define all the permissible words somewhere – perhaps in a manual? Now that’s a clever idea. Why don’t we call it a dictionary? Then Scrabble players could refer to it to see what a word is, and if they want to improve, they could learn more words like AE, AA, QI, QAT, JO, ZO that weren’t in their particular lexicon when they started.

Related past blogs

• Finally my Scrabble score averages 400 (in 694 games) – Now I’ll need to change my Who’s Who!
• The new Scrabble words – a player’s analysis of how useful they are
• Finally cracked a 600 score at Scrabble! Hoorah
• New Scrabble Rules Must Be a Joke – Is it a late April Fool?
• 158 point single go scrabble joy
• Scrabble – an easy way to win
• I scored 596 at Scrabble, so why does it depress me?
• SUPER SCRABBLE! WOW!

The psychology of leaving a stranger with your valuables

I’m often out and about around the country and am never without my laptop. This means on trains, in coffee shops, or elsewhere; it’s unpacked, set up and out as a portable office. The dilemma is when a ‘comfort break’ is needed – do you pack everything up and shut your laptop down? Or risk leaving it out?

Usually I leave it in the trust of a stranger. So far it’s never let me down. All I mean by this is a quick word with someone next to me to ask them to keep an eye on it.  

Having just done it, while its always made intuitive sense, I thought I would think through the logic. After all, if I’m worried about the risk of a stranger nicking it, why trust a stranger to look after it…

• It’s who you pick. Often in life we rely on what are known as ‘short cut rationales’ – instinctive judgements based on limited facts (politics is a classic case, if you identify with a political party and an issue you’re not well-up on is discussed, most people automatically side with the person they know usually has similar views to them).

  The same’s true on picking people, small key factors will help you decide who to pick eg. what you hear in a conversation, what they’re reading or doing – it all helps you make the decision that this is someone who is unlikely to steal from you. And if you’re unsure about them, you don’t leave your stuff with them.

• Random chance means it’s unlikely you’ll pick a dishonest person. I like to think most people are fundamentally honest. Especially when it comes to other individuals’ possessions (people tend to consider stealing from an individual worse than from a corporate entity for example).

  Yet the chance of having unguarded valuables stolen by a stranger is high. After all, in a room of forty or fifty people, it’s likely someone is dishonest – and it only takes one to steal.

  However the maths means this high risk is reversed when you’re asking someone to help you. If we take the probability of someone being dishonest as one in 50, (or even one in 20 if you’re less trusting) then by picking one person to look after your valuables, it’s actually rather unlikely you’ll pick the dishonest one – and this is skewed further if your judgement of people is reasonable.

• Picking them provides an identification point. By choosing someone and looking them in the eyes, you’ve identified them. Therefore the consequences of them stealing are upped.  Even if they have the occasional light fingered temptation – they know you will recognise them. And while of course it’d still be difficult to track them down this added element of doubt is a good deterrent.

• Closed environment. If I think of the last two times I’ve done this, one was on a train – when I made sure I went to the loo and got back to my seat before the train stopped. This meant the person would still be in the closed train environment when I came back.

  And this morning it was in the ITV staff canteen, where by definition it’s a limited number of people working in a similar industry. Even in a café I’d normally be tempted to consider doing this as there are other people about, though I think I’d draw the line at doing it in a park.

• A natural empathy helps protect. I also think there’s an inbuilt responsibility chip in many people, that when someone else gives a reasonable request to help – we put ourselves in that position and like to deliver.

So am I too trusting in human nature? Or do you have similar views too? I’d love your thoughts below.

PS. I’ve just been sent this link and apparently there was a psychological experiment on this subject (ta Dave Ellman) – which shows that if you ask people to look after your stuff, there’s a massively increased chance of them intervening if someone tries to take it.

The top 10 real things we don't believe in

Arthur C. Clarke’s law is that: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". This is a comfort as I recently admitted I don’t believe planes can fly.  Thankfully that blog’s comments brought many others out of the closet of confidence – so here are my remaining top ten picks of real things people don’t believe in.

PS. Thanks to Sophie Garrett for the Arthur C. Clarke quote.

2. Cheryl Galbraith: "If you roll a die five times and it rolls a six each time, the chances of it rolling a six on the sixth roll is still just one in six."

3. Natalie Humphreys: "Mobile phones can let you speak to people on the other side of the world – without wires!"

4. Carol Ewens: "I can’t believe ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’ is not butter."

5. Natasha Ready: "That rowdy oik with the scruffy jeans and shocking attitude was once my adorable firstborn baby.."  

6. Wendy Wilshaw: "Pausing live TV while you answer the door to trick or treaters, then carrying on as if nothing happened. It’s like having your own time machine."

7. Matthew O’Reilly: "If there are just 23 people in a room then the probability that two of them share a birthday is 50% and you only need 41 people to make the probability 90%!"

8. Martin Lewis (me): "Drop a feather and a tonne of lead in a vacuum and they’d both fall at equal speeds."

9. Peter Watts: "Each time we have a general election the government win."

And finally, to remind us all that a fact is only a fact until it’s disproved…

10. John Rose: "And someone once thought the earth was flat."

More sceptics of the truth suggestions welcome below…

PPS. I’d like to apologise to my hero Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory for writing this blog, I know he would be deeply ashamed of its content.

I don't believe planes can fly

While I’ve been in a plane many times, I still have doubts over the science of powered flight. Hot air balloons make sense to me, yet those big heavy steel planes with their mega-tonne jet engines – no, that’s just too farfetched.

The idea that the take-off, created by small wings at speed is enough to pull a plane into the air to heights of 40,000 feet – is that plausible? I’m just not buying it.

Before you start to worry I’ve gone all David Icke on you, these were the thoughts I used to distract myself as pain relief while finishing the last two miles of yesterday’s Great South Run in the hideous wind and with leg cramps.

It came about as I first concluded that doing a marathon wasn’t physically possible and therefore the TV elite runners are all in fact identical triplets doing it as a tag team. After that, the concept of interrogating my doubts about flying just popped into my head.

My surmise was there’s a projector screen erected outside displaying a pre-filmed moving skyline (I can only presume it was filmed from a hot air balloon and sped up). This is then synched with hydraulic ramps to simulate take off and landing. These ramps are switched off during the main flight (for budgetary reasons – natch) while the plane is tugged to the destination.

Slightly annoyingly this does raise the question that the world and temperature variations are much smaller than we were led to believe previously – but overall isn’t that still slightly more plausible than planes being able to fly?

Normal, saner blog service will be resumed tomorrow. Meanwhile, is there anything you know is true, but still can’t believe?

I’m writing this having JUST run the 10 mile Great South Run, in a time of 1:28:10. The last couple of miles in the face of a biting sea wind were bitterly painful and while running I concluded it is impossible for any normal human being to actually run the marathon (if you’ve done it, I can only conclude you’ve got superpowers).

So just a quick blog to thank all those who cheered me round the course and sponsored me. It was far further than I’ve ever run before and it really kept me going. Including the matched giving and gift aid £12,800 is going to Cancer Research – thanks so much for your glorious support.

And well done to the other 25,000 people who were out there too.

Below are a few pictures from the race.

Those of us from team 'celeb' who'd blagged a place near the front

Struggling along half way through…

Hamstring stretch courtesy of Andy Akinwolere – it's amazing the things they learn on Blue Peter

"Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it" – Bazinga

Sheldon Cooper is my hero. For those who haven’t watched the genius sitcom, ‘The Big Bang Theory’, Sheldon is an uber anal mega-brain, halfway between being a seminal scientific genius and a super-villain.

I decided it was time to introduce blog readers who may’ve missed this slice of nerd heaven to TBBT (to geek-acronym it). It’s beautifully written, skilfully acted and merges science and silliness wonderfully.

Better still, Sheldon even has a monologue on how Christmas gift-giving is pointless (hoorah! see my own Ban Christmas presents blog).

Last night I re-watched my favourite clip of all the series again – a devastating display of full-on super-nerd power in a comic book store.  You have to wonder how many takes it took the actors to do this perfectly (got it).

PS. As for the T-shirt in the pic – thanks to Mrs MSE for the gift. I think she thought, if you can’t beat the nerds, allow him to join them.

PPS. If you watch the show you have to feel sorry for MSE Penny. I find it near irresistible not to knock on her MSE Towers desk three times saying "Penny" every time I want to ask her something.

I need an 'angry' and 'excuse me' horn on my scooter

Riding a scooter’s very different to driving a car. You need be extra vigilant as you’re less visible and there’s a big ‘it’s what the other fella’s doing that’s the problem’ factor.   One specific issue that often rears its head (or wheelies) is people misunderstanding when I toot the horn.

Many interpret it as an angry gesture, that I’m trying to tell them off or remonstrate. Actually, the huge majority of the time it only means ‘just checking you know I’m here’ – and is used when you’re coming up close or on someone’s blind spot. But that doesn’t stop the obscene shouts, people flipping the bird, or one fella even deliberately chasing me in his car and getting far too close for comfort.

So what I really wish for is two noises on my scooter – one for alerts and one for anger – perhaps a very loud equivalent of a bicycle bell. Of course officially there should be no ‘anger’, as horns aren’t for that, yet as in practice they often are used that way, so to have something that differentiates the noise and is obviously recognisable as such would be helpful.

This isn’t of course a truly practical suggestion. In many ways it’s just a heads up to car drivers that things are a little different from the seat of a bike (maybe that’s something that needs to be in the driving test).

PS. For the bikers who’ll ask, I a currently have a 125 cc Yamaha. I do intend to take my bike/scooter test so I can get something a touch bigger, but finding the time isn’t easy.

I'm not fit to be a UK citizen!

I’ve just taken the practice UK citizenship test online and scored 17 out of 24 (try yourself below), just under the 75% pass mark. I wanted to give it a try as I’m currently a referee for a good friend who is applying for a UK passport – she was telling me about the test, and passed it first time, so I thought I’d give it a go.

But now I’ve seen it, it really isn’t that easy. To pass she did work and study for the test before hand, plus she’s an experienced Italian journalist and English language broadcaster (Update: Her name’s Barbara Serra, she’s confirmed she didn’t mind a name check) who’s been here since we were students at the LSE together in 1993.

While some of the questions she faced are practical ones such as: ‘Where do you apply for a National Insurance card?’ – others such as: ‘What is the current minimum wage?’ or: ‘What year did women get the vote?’ require specific learning – not generalised knowledge.

I presume the reason for that is that you can only take the test in English, it’s also partly a comprehension test and thus you need pretty decent English to take it in the first place.

If you want to take the practice test I found online it’s here: http://www.ukcitizenshiptest.co.uk/ (it’s not the Home Office page though, so for its info go to: http://lifeintheuktest.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/).

Do try it and let me know how you did below (and be honest).