TalkTalk still letting down its customers (2)
April 13th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Twenty four hours after I did a posting on my e-mail problem with TalkTalk, I have heard nothing more from the company – but the issue is now resolved.
This afternoon, Vee’s nephew Martin came round for tea with his wife and children. Although he works in IT, I didn’t want to bother him with my problem, partly because it was a social occasion and partly because I was convinced that the matter could only be sorted out by TalkTak. But my wife Vee has seen how stressed i have been by the matter and mentioned it to her nephew.
Martin offered to look at it. He resolved it – not in hours, not in minutes, but in seconds. He simply went on to the web version of my e-mail service (which I never use) and immediately discovered that my mail quota was 100%. He made some deletions and the problem was sorted.
As with so many IT issues, the matter was simple if you knew what you were doing. Martin did; TalkTalk has no idea.
So a million thanks to Martin. And I’m going to wait and see how long it takes TalkTalk to get back to me and see what they say …
Update (14/4/13:
Thirty six hours after referring my problem to the network team, TalkTalk texted me to advise that testing had not found a network fault and could I advise them if the issue was now fixed. Well, yes – but no thanks to TalkTalk. Nobody in the company thought to check my mail quota.
Posted in Internet, My life & thoughts | Comments (2)
Ever heard of the tuatara?
April 13th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
During our recent visit to New Zealand, we came across a creature that I had never heard of before: tuatara.
It is a most unusual animal. It is rare and can be found only in New Zealand. It looks like a lizard but comes from a distinct lineage going back 200 years million which means that it is sometimes dubbed a “living fossil”. It can hear but it has no ears. And it has a so-called ‘third eye’.
On holiday, we bought a set of six wooden coasters in the shape of the tuatara and cleverly they can all fit together into one structure.
You can learn more about tuatara here.
Posted in Environment | Comments (0)
TalkTalk still letting down its customers (1)
April 12th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Four years ago, I lost my Internet service for 10 days and blogged about the horrendous experience here. This week I fell into another black hole in cyberspace …
My Internet service provider is TalkTalk which, ever since Ofcom has published comparative complaints data, has been an outlier with the worst record of any ISP. The latest data from Ofcom – published a few days ago – confirms the downward trend in TalkTalk’s level of complaints but it is still the worst performer (after a specific spike in complaints to Orange).
Now, some time on Tuesday evening, I stopped receiving e-mails on all my devices: Mac mini, iPad and iPhone. I can still send e-mails and search the web but people trying to e-mail me are being told that my mail quota is exceeded.
It would relieve a little of my immense frustration if I could share a summary of my travails with you.
I was out of town all day Wednesday, so I called TalkTalk on Wednesday evening. I was advised that they were suffering from an outage and even given details of the route allegedly involved. I was assured that the outage would be resolved in the next 24-48 hours.
Since nothing happened, on Thursday evening, I called TalkTalk again. This time I was told that there was no outage, my line was working normally, and the problem must be with my Apple e-mail settings.
Today I started with Apple who throughout have been great. They told me that I needed to obtain mail server settings from TalkTalk before they could help me. So back to TalkTalk who gave me all the details.
I then spent an amazing two hours with three Apple people who were all incredibly patient with me. Eventually I was asked to delete the e-mail account on all three of my Apple devices and set up accounts again reinserting all the settings. Things looked good when e-mail started to load on the Mac mini, but the e-mail dated from 5 March and, when it reached this Tuesday evening, stopped – after loading 754 items.
Apple assured me that all this demonstrated that the problem was not with settings on my Apple devices but with TalkTalk. So back to TalkTalk for the fourth time. It took me another hour talking to another three call centre staff in India before they finally accepted that a) it was their problem; b) they could not resolve it and it would be referred to the network service desk. I’ve now had a text message on my mobile to confirm that the desk is working on my case …
So, if you are a relative, a friend, or work for one of the five organisations with which I serve. please bear with me and, if you need to be in contact, text, phone or use Vee’s e-mail.
Posted in Internet, My life & thoughts | Comments (1)
How well treated are children in your country?
April 11th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
An important measure of how civilised is a country is how well that nation treats its most vulnerable citizens, its children. The UN agency UNICEF periodically publishes league tables on this issue.
This week it has published its latest report. The key table – on the frst page of text – ranks 29 developed countries according to the overall well-being of their children and each country’s overall rank is based on its average ranking for the five dimensions of child well-being considered in the review.
Four of the top five countries are Scandinavian: Norway, Iceland, Finland and Sweden. The top nation is another small one with strong social welfare policies: The Netherlands.
The British media has concentrated on the UK’s position in the table – number 16 out of 29 – and noted that this shows an improvement as a result of policies of the last Labour Government but warned that we can now expect a decline as a consequence of the welfare cuts of the current Coalition Government.
For me though, another striking feature of the UNICEF table is the position of the United States. It is 26th and located between Greece and Lithuania. This is the most powerful and prosperous nation on the globe that accords its children no better treatment than crisis-hit Greece.
I wonder how the US media reported this UNICEF assessment?
Posted in American current affairs, British current affairs, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Would you outsource the naming of your baby?
April 10th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
I have an extensive essay on my web site about naming practices around the world which you can check out here.
I recently received an e-mail from the United States responding to my essay. It said:
“I found your blog when I was doing research on baby names. I work as an editor for BellyBallot – http://babynames.net/, a start-up company which introduces a brand new concept of naming a child, based on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, where parents and soon-to-be parents can invite friends and family to vote for specific baby names parents have chosen for their newborns.
On top of this new approach to baby naming, BellyBallot also tries to provide information about specific countries and regions where names are used, and we also have our blog where we discuss new trends in baby naming and where parents can interact in our weekly naming contests – http://babynames.net/blog/.”
I responded as follows:
“I was fascinated to hear of your project, but very surprised that you believe that parents will outsource the naming of their child to family and friends.This approach seems to run counter to everything I know about naming practices. Most parents regard the choice of name as an intensely personal matter and are powerfully influenced by cultural and religious influences rather than the views of associates. The majority of the world’s population is still not connected to the Net and, even in developed countries, social media tends to be used by a minority of Net users.As for your predictions for 2013-2014, I regard four of the five as very American and not at all relevant to most of the world. The only prediction I would endorse is number 3 that old names will make a come back. But this has always been the case. Many names follow a cycle, but predicting which names will make a comeback and when is difficult.”Sorry not to be more enthusisatic about your start up, but I really believe that naming one’s child is a very personal act, strongly influienced by local culture, and that the USA – as in so many other respects socially – is an outlier.”
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (4)
America’s health (dis)advantage
April 9th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
I have done a posting in the recent past about how America spends so much on healthcare and yet its citizens have such poor health outcomes compared to many other developed countries. My attention has now been drawn to a brilliant infographic which sets out these issues very clearly and identifies the major reasons why this is the case.
You can check it out here.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
One more view on Margaret Thatcher
April 9th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
In my time, I’ve met four British Prime Ministers. Given my politics, they were all Labour: Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. I never wanted to meet Margaret Thatcher.
This was not just a matter of ideology, but also an issue of personality. While I accept that she modernised Britain in some important respects, she increased economic inequality and excessively empowered the forces of raw capitalism. While I acknowledge her prodigious work rate, formidable memory and fierce will. I believe that she lacked understanding for or empathy with those who were less advantaged or strong-willed as herself.
The woman, who stood on the steps of 10 Downing Street after her first General Election victory and stated “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony”, was a deeply divisive figure who actively promoted conflict at both home and abroad. She had a confrontational, even bullying, style of leadership that is not one I respect or practice.
Posted in British current affairs, History | Comments (1)
Comparing North and South Korea
April 8th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
The “Guardian” newspaper today has a fascinating comparison of North Korea and South Korea which you can see here.
Two basic tests of how a government delivers for its citizens are the number of years you can expect to live and the standard of living you can expect to enjoy in those years.
Life expectancy in North Korea is 69.2 years, while in South Korea it is 79.3 years so, on average, you will live a whole decade longer if you reside in the South.
GDP per capita is a mere $1,800 in North Korea compared to $32,400 in South Korea, so again on average you will have a standard of living 18 times higher if you live in the South.
In these circumstances, it is utterly tragic that North Korea spemds more than a fifth ((22.3%) of its entire GDP on military expenditure.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
My Thought For The Week
April 8th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Each weekend for more than 13 years, I have sent out an e-mail Thought For The Week to friends and colleagues. You can check out all the thoughts here.
The lsit of recipients has grown and grown and, following my recent holiday in Australia & New Zealand, the circulation list has passed the 2,000 mark. If you do not receive it and would like to do so, please e-mail me:
rogerdarlington@dsl.pipex.com
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
The brutal reality of North Korea
April 6th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Is North Korea trying to instigate a war or just attempting some kind of political gamesmanship?
We know very little about how and why decisions are made at the top of this brutal and secretive dictatorship. Probably Kim Jong-un is inventing the myth of an imminent American invasion in order to distract his people from the poverty and hunger than is their day to day reality or perhaps he is hoping to win some financial support from the USA in return for lowering the tension.
Meanwhile the “Mirror” newspaper provides a reminder today of how some 200,000 political prisoners are treated in North Korea’s gulags – see the story here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (2)