Story Update

I am pleased to say that my letters of complaint regarding the problems with the free bus that serves the supermarket have not fallen on deaf ears. It would have been very easy to dismiss my concerns with well-meaning but empty words. However, following my call to the customer service call centre and my subsequent letter sent via email, I got quite a full response back. While I kept to the details to what I knew to be true, and what I had witnessed myself, I also emphasised that the supermarket was loosing business from the conduct of the Bus Company. Further, they too were extremely concerned regarding the possible unroadworthiness of the buses used for the service. So while I do not yet know what will result from this, I have to praise the way the supermarket are handling the matter. Although the test will be if there any improvements to the service.


Another update relates to my being left hanging around when absailing down to cave on a cliff. As my regular reader will know, I was forced into doing this, but things went wrong and I was left dangling. The problem that I had over the whole incident was that the people involved were not being straight and honest with me. I was getting contradictory facts, also as some of the people were supposed to be trained and teaching young people, I had no option but to inform the licensing authority of the incident.


It turns out that the whole matter had been staged as an initiation ceremony, but when the secondary line really became snagged in the rocks, what started as a prank became a genuinely serious and dangerous one. Even the owner of the land, a peer of the realm, was part of this prank too.


As my father was in the Blues and Royals there was an assumption made that I was ex-army too. In fact because I can be quite good at tracking wildlife, they assumed that I must have had Special Forces training. Therefore, they assumed that I would be able to deal with their trick.


Well the people involved have had more than a serious warning from the Health and Safety people. I also got an apology from them, but I will not be helping them again. At least I got to the truth and I know they will not be putting other people in danger. I must say that I find the whole initiation ceremony thing rather childish and in my opinion it’s a form bullying. Anyway I am pleased that they seem to have learned a lesson from the incident.


The other update regards the saga of my computer. I had already bought the new power leads and I was waiting on the software that could help resolve the problem. I don’t know what it is with computer people but they sometimes appear to be in a world of their own. The software I needed, or was told I needed was available on line. But I could not download it to the machine I needed to fix. Therefore I needed it on a disc. Oh we don’t do that, they said. They realised finally that this was illogical as if the machine will not start at all how can you then download the software that could fix it. Oh they said and sold me the software on a disc.


It did not work. Therefore, I am going back to my original plan and with a new hard drive I will install a new operating system. If only from the cost view point I would love to avoid using Microsoft, as it’s nearly two hundred pounds just for the operating system, and use Linux. But having already bought on version of this that does not allow me to install or run other software. I do not see the point, as to run other software like my video editing or photo software I have to also run Windows and choose to use either windows or linux.


Therefore I ask, why can’t someone produce a genuine alternative to Microsoft Windows? As it stands Microsoft have a real monopoly and can charge what it likes for its products. Personally I can not see how they can justify a cost of any more than fifty pounds for the software that runs the computer, no matter how sophisticated it is.


So I will have to wait until I can afford the extortionate costs of Microsoft Windows before I can use the new computer. Robbery used to happen with a mask and flintlock, now it happens with a hologram and access code.