I’m Be-ing invaded from the Sky

Oh bugger. Hello james, As you may well know, we’ve now bought O2 and BE home broadband and home phone businesses, and we’re really excited to welcome you to Sky. We’ll be bringing your services over to Sky’s network starting later this year. Until then, you’ll continue to get exactly the same home broadband and …

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Efflorescence in our cellar

Since moving in I’ve noticed a strange white fur growing on the walls and floor of the cellar. Originally I just figured it was mould caused by the damp in the cellar and ignored it, but yesterday I went into the cellar and noticed it’d grown all over the solid stone table that’s down there. …

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It either went in the van, or it went in the bin

We moved house. It was a little bit disruptive to all concerned and isn’t something I’d recommend doing unless you’ve got a week to waste.

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British Paper-shuffling gone mad

To rent a van I need to provide the following Driving licence (this makes sense) Proof of my address (fair enough) A credit card to take the deposit (if you insist) The proof of address must be two documents, a mixture of a bank statement and a utility bill with my address on. To rent …

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Moving house Version 3.0

Yes, I’ve done this before once or twice. Thank god the Internet has become more of a useful tool in the past three years (well, two and a half, but nobody noticed when I put ‘three years 4 months’ on the reference forms. Saves me having to remember the past sixteen addresses I’ve lived at). …

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I’m Be-ing invaded from the SkyEfflorescence in our cellarIt either went in the van, or it went in the binBritish Paper-shuffling gone madMoving house Version 3.0

May 05

I’m Be-ing invaded from the Sky

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Inane Rantings

Oh bugger.

Hello james,

As you may well know, we’ve now bought O2 and BE home broadband and home phone businesses, and we’re really excited to welcome you to Sky.

We’ll be bringing your services over to Sky’s network starting later this year. Until then, you’ll continue to get exactly the same home broadband and phone service (if you have it with O2 or BE) as you do now. Right now, you don’t need to do a thing.

If you have any questions, you can find more information and details on how to contact Sky here

We’ll shortly be sending you a welcome pack in the post, which will explain what’s happening in more detail. But for now we just wanted to say hello.

Kind Regards,
Sky Home Communications Team

we’re really excited to welcome you to Sky

I’ve known about this for a few months now and have done a bit of research. My choices seem limited to either giving some major TV & Telecoms company my money in exchange for “Unlimited” Internet but congested, proxied connections that don’t let me have a static IP address, or a small independent company who imposes bandwidth limits on me, but otherwise leaves me a lone.

Surely there’s a way to buy “real” Internet from someone without having to pay hundreds of pounds per month doing so? We don’t have fibre in our street, but I bet in 10 years time when we do I’ll be able to buy wholesale fibre off some reseller. I mean, 10 years ago I had a 2Mbit ADSL connection that had severe problems at 5pm and other people used to handle my mail and web services. Now I have a 12Mbit ADSL connection and receive incoming HTTP and SMTP.

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Apr 05

Efflorescence in our cellar

Categories:

Inane Rantings

Since moving in I’ve noticed a strange white fur growing on the walls and floor of the cellar. Originally I just figured it was mould caused by the damp in the cellar and ignored it, but yesterday I went into the cellar and noticed it’d grown all over the solid stone table that’s down there. It wasn’t on it the day before, somehow it’d just magically sprung up overnight.

Having lived in mouldy houses before, I’ve never encountered the stuff just appearing overnight. A bit of Googling told me that it was something called efflorescence, a deposit of minerals and salts that leech out of stone and masonry that is damp. It makes sense I suppose, brickwork can’t go mouldy it grows slime and moss instead.

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Mar 03

It either went in the van, or it went in the bin

Categories:

Inane Rantings

We moved house. It was a little bit disruptive to all concerned and isn’t something I’d recommend doing unless you’ve got a week to waste.

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Feb 18

British Paper-shuffling gone mad

Categories:

Inane Rantings

To rent a van I need to provide the following

  • Driving licence (this makes sense)
  • Proof of my address (fair enough)
  • A credit card to take the deposit (if you insist)

The proof of address must be two documents, a mixture of a bank statement and a utility bill with my address on.

To rent a new house I need to provide the following

  • Photo ID (I suppose this makes sense)
  • Proof of address that cannot be a credit card statement

(This is in addition to the lengthy credit and background check they did a month ago)

Yes… to move into a new house I need to prove where I live. Or I need to prove where I just moved out of, which also makes no sense – “Hey look! I don’t live here any more and I have paperwork to prove it”. I might just wave the tenancy agreement at them and point out “you posted this to me, I have it. I think you’re probably talking to the right person”.

Madness. Especially when I went to print a gas bill and it had my old, old address from three years ago on it which caused five minutes of hold music and a confused man on the phone.

To get a resident’s parking permit so that my car doesn’t get a ticket I need to provide the following

  • Car details
  • Proof of address

Again, this makes sense… except what do I do with my car when I’ve just moved in and haven’t had time to fill in forms, post them off, wait for them to be processed and then wait for the sticker to be posted back to me. Or the rental van…

At least the woman sorting out my home insurance was more helpful and made sense.

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Jan 29

Moving house Version 3.0

Categories:

Inane Rantings

Yes, I’ve done this before once or twice. Thank god the Internet has become more of a useful tool in the past three years (well, two and a half, but nobody noticed when I put ‘three years 4 months’ on the reference forms. Saves me having to remember the past sixteen addresses I’ve lived at).

Went on Google, stuck in “houses for rent in <new place>”, started clicking on links. Found house on Monday, arranged viewing for Friday. Friday snowed, Amy was in Leeds on a train in the snow, I was driving from work to <new place> getting stuck in rush hour traffic. We only arrived 20 minutes late, but that’s OK I’ve never been on time to a house viewing for a house we’ve actually taken.

Also it was snowing, did I mention the snow? I got Monday off work because it was that “bad”. This worked out really well because on Monday the letting agency rang us back and had a chat.

Anyway, we went to the house. It’s a terrace, but like most houses I live in, it’s a bit weird. There’s rear access and a garage, but you drive under the house to get to it. It has a secret cellar (secret in that I didn’t know it existed until I went there and went “oh! cellar!”) and a really long corridor going to the bathroom and really high ceilings.

After politely pestering the letting agency all week using various tactics from “what’s going on?” to “oh err my phone is broken can I just check you have another number… and how’s it going anyway?” we’ve just had confirmation we can move. This is good, I gave notice to my current letting agency this afternoon.

Now to go through the pain in the arse of telling BT I want to move so that I get a phoneline and some Internet (not from BT).

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