Regendering engenders panic at the disco

The RSC having refused to give me my money back when I asked for it on the grounds that the play ‘King John’ should feature a man in the title role, I forced myself to go and see it for myself.
It stars Rosie Sheehy in the title role but, having sat through the whole thing unlike five people around me, I could find no answer to the overwhelming question: What was the point casting a woman as the king?
Short, fat little Rosie has a good voice and played the part well. But it was frequently confusing. Was this a woman pretending to be a man? Or a woman pretending to be a man who wanted to be a woman? Or a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman in order to pretend to be a man?
Was s/he flirting with the King of France or was that just pretend? Was none of it ambiguous and should the audience simply take it at face value that King John was simply a man played by a woman as if it made no difference?
The confusion was not confined to the King. The Cardinal is played by a woman as well. A woman with a handbag.
To make matters worse, it is all set in the 1960s and involves a certain amount of bizarre dancing which must be hideously embarrassing to perform. I felt very sorry for the poor cast.
We must conclude the director, Eleanor Rhode, has so little faith in William Shakespeare the only way she could bring herself to stage the play at all was by ripping it up and starting again.
In fairness, most Shakespeare plays are so well-known it is the director’s interpretation, or the actors’ skill, which reveal something new. But a play as obscure and rarely-performed as ‘King John’ has no need of gimmicks and trickery. There is, or should be, pleasure and interest merely in seeing it reasonably faithfully performed.
That hope was dashed the moment Rhode decided to give the lead role to a woman.
If we pretend this has nothing at all to do with Shakespeare then the production is reasonably entertaining aside from the cringe-making dance-moves which would have been embarrassing in any setting.
Without the £15 million of taxpayers’ money the RSC gets every year, they wouldn’t be able to deliver productions like this.
And the reaction of audiences can be seen by the fact that even on a Friday night close to Christmas, there were still plenty of empty seats (the three people beside us left at the interval, two more stumbled out mid-way through the second half).
The poet John Dryden adopted the Thatcherite view of the theatre: ‘The drama’s laws the drama’s patrons give, for we that live to please must please to live.’
In the RSC’s politically-correct socialist utopia, it’s more a question of: ‘The drama’s laws the drama’s luvvies give, for we do what we please thanks to fat subsidies.’

Regendering in luvvie-land

If you read my previous blog on the topic, you will know I complained to the Royal Shakespeare Company that their production of ‘King John’ featured a woman in the title role and I asked for my money back.

As far as I’m concerned, I was mis-sold my tickets because I expected, when I booked, that a man would play the King.

I reckoned without the widespread theatre policy of politically-correct casting (called, among other things, ‘regendering’). The RSC’s ‘Director for Audiences and Marketing’, Chris Hill, refused a refund though he did offer to swap the tickets for some other (doubtless equally-PC production) as ‘a gesture of good will’. An offer I ignored.

He told me: ‘I’m afraid we will have to agree to disagree on your opinions about Eleanor Rhode’s approach to King John who, in her view, cast the right person for the role irrelevant of gender and the production recently opened to some great reviews following its Press Night.’

He then regaled me with what the RSC’s luvvie-in-chief Greg Doran had to say at their last AGM: The first thing to say about Regendering is that it is nothing new. Exactly 120 years ago, this year here in Stratford, on a matinee performance in June 1899, the famous French actress, the divine Sarah Bernhardt played Hamlet.  It’s nearly 25 years since Fiona Shaw played Richard II; Glenda Jackson has just played King Lear on Broadway. And it’s a process of discovery we have been on at Stratford for quite some time, including Neil Bartlett’s Twelfth Night in 2007, in which Toby Belch, Andrew Aguecheek, Fabian and even Viola were all gender flipped. For me, regendering is also an opportunity: opening parts to exceptional actresses, for whom the traditional assignment of roles in the canon leaves little left for them to play.  Sometimes it’s a provocation, sometimes a revelation, but most of the time, you simply don’t notice, or quickly forget, as gender is not necessarily the primary motor of these characters. But it’s an exploration not a policy.’

This is all very well but I would contend most theatregoers don’t want to see our heavily subsidised national theatre companies distorting the world so flagrantly.

I wanted to pursue my complaint through the small claims court but the domestic goddess vetoed the idea. It seems, from a cursory look at theatre reviews, that ‘regendering’ is de rigueur in luvvieland so I am biting the bullet and going to see the damned thing. A review will follow after we have endured it to the bitter end.

Incidentally the production got 4 stars from the ‘Grauniad’ (no surprise there), the ‘Stratford Herald’ liked it but found it confusing, ‘The Times’ awarded 3 stars as did ‘The Telegraph’ which called it ‘jaunty but lightweight’. ‘The Morning Star’, Jezza Corbyn’s top read, might have been expected to be supportive but it concludes: This is essentially directors’ theatre, full of disparate ideas and images which never fully cohere into significant meaning. Poor old Shakespeare.’

Oh and check this out...

 

Christmas in Kabul, 1841

Well the good news is that I have bought into some new promotional thing which is supposed to make sure my book, 'The Trials of Eldred Pottinger', is widely promoted on tinernet.

The bad news is I'm not sure it's any good. Have a look and see for yourself. You're supposed to be able to read some of the pages, listen to a bit of audio (me, reading about Christmas in Kabul) and watch the promotional video.

Oh and feel free to pass it on to friends, relatives and anyone else who might be interested: https://www.book2look.com/book/hJnQ8wYZwK

The Impeachment of Horace Thompson

I've just written a new short story about Brexit: Appalled by the way our politicians have handled Brexit, Walsall plumber Dave Britten is literally dumbstruck. He is so angry he can no longer speak.

The last straw was the arrest and impeachment of the Prime Minister, Horace Thompson, on a charge of treason.

As the liberal remainer establishment goes to any lengths to thwart the will of the people, setting up a Government of National Unity under new Prime Minister Joe Berk, Dave Britten is completely lost for words.

This short story is one of those extremely rare works of fiction written from the point of view of the people who actually want the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.

Download a PDF for free here.

Alternatively, you can buy it on Amazon for a mere 99p.

It’s amusing, which is more than can be said for the Brexit process.

I thought this story would only be viable for about three days and would be taken down last Saturday but the shenanigans in Parliament mean it is still valid as of October 21.

Enemies of the people

The Supreme Court enemies of the people claim in their judgment:

This prolonged suspension of Parliamentary democracy took place in quite exceptional circumstances: the fundamental change which was due to take place in the Constitution of the United Kingdom on 31st October. Parliament, and in particular the House of Commons as the elected representatives of the people, has a right to a voice in how that change comes about. The effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy was extreme.

Yeah but… no but… I was under the impression our elected representatives had spent the last three years exercising their voice in how that change comes about - or, to be more accurate, trying to ensure that change never takes place.

This court case is just another feeble ploy in the long campaign to prevent the United Kingdom from ever leaving the European Union.

But when these whingeing remainers moan about sovereignty and democracy, please, please, please remember: Parliament handed sovereignty over this issue to the people in a democratic referendum. It is now trying to frustrate their decision and undermine the sovereignty Parliament itself handed over when it voted overwhelmingly for a referendum.

The fact that a majority of MPs don’t like our decision is irrelevant. They must not be allowed to impose a Parliamentary dictatorship on the people.

If they won’t do anything else then they must permit Boris Johnson to hold a General Election so we can clear out all those trying to frustrate the democracy of the people and replace them with delegates who will do as the people have told them to do.

RSC's 'King John' - ridiculous excess

A producer at the RSC has finally responded to my complaint that I don’t want to see a production of King John where the title role is played by a woman. Claire Birch says:

Dear Nigel Hastilow

Thank you for your email and for taking the time to get in touch.

The Royal Shakespeare Company is a national company and is in receipt of significant public funding.  It is our mission to ensure Shakespeare is for everyone and therefore it is our responsibility to reflect the nation in our work from the perspective of diversity, gender, regionality and disability. Everyone feels more connected to the stories we tell if they can see or hear themselves.  

We create a huge range of work here and we accept that not all audiences will like all the choices that we make - be they design, directorial or performance

As we know Shakespeare had boys playing women, we feel certain he would have no problem with women playing roles seen as traditionally male.  The director's approach to King John was not about gender. The play is about politics, wars and family feuds, gender feels irrelevant within this context. Queen Elinor herself says to the Bastard: Bequeath they land to him and follow me? I am a solider and now bound to France.

I would urge you to give the show a chance. We have had fantastically positive responses from audiences so far. 

With best wishes 
Claire 
Claire Birch
Producer

 I’ve replied:

Dear Claire

Thank you for your belated reply.

You say it is your mission to make sure Shakespeare is for everyone and it is therefore ‘our responsibility to reflect the nation in our work from the perspective of diversity, gender, regionality and disability. Everyone feels more connected to the stories we tell if they can see or hear themselves'.

I really do not accept that, in trying to attract as wide an audience as possible, it automatically follows that your work should reflect all the categories you set out in your email. Shakespeare already holds a mirror up to nature without the need for the RSC to cabin, crib and confine him in your organisation’s tedious, politically-correct straightjacket.

How you can possibly ‘feel certain’ Shakespeare would have no problem with women in men’s roles defeats me. You have no way of justifying that assertion beyond pointing out the obvious fact that his female characters were played by boys and young men. 
If the director’s approach to King John is not about gender, why cast a woman as a King when it immediately distracts from whatever her approach is actually about? The quote you supply does not seem to be any sort of justification. The RSC’s tedious policy of gender-blind casting is ‘wasteful and ridiculous excess’.

And claiming you have so far received ‘fantastically positive responses from audiences’ is completely disingenuous given that the play’s first public performance, in advance of its official first night, took place in the evening of the day you sent your email. 
When I booked tickets for King John, I had hoped to see a reasonably straightforward production of a rarely-performed play. I do not believe casting a woman in the title role will add to my understanding and appreciation of the play.

I am well aware that, as one of the many theatregoers who the RSC accommodates under sufferance (that is to say, white, male, elderly, middle-class etc), I realise my opinion is of no significance.

However, had I known the role of the King would be played by a woman, irrespective of how well-received the production might be among the cognoscenti, I would not have wasted £93 on two tickets to see it.

I accept that one should really see a play for oneself before criticising it but there are times, and this is one of them, when I would not have bothered to pay any attention to your production and merely wrung my hands in quiet despair (as I did on discovering the role-reversals in The Taming of the Shrew, for instance). I therefore repeat my request for my money back because, as far as I am concerned, the RSC sold the tickets under false pretences.

Playing the woman's part

On July 25 I sent this message to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford on Avon and, despite a pledge on their website to respond within three weeks, they have so far failed to reply:

As a regular visitor to your highly-subsidised playhouse, I am utterly sick of the way you abdicate responsibility for putting on vaguely reasonable productions (eg Coriolanus, King of Britain, being a woman; The Shrew being a man etc) but assumed King John would be a man. I bought tickets on that basis but discover you have cast a woman in the role and I have no wish to see this politically-correct nonsense. Please refund my money and explain the thinking behind these unreasonable distortions; whether you think you have any responsibility towards theatregoers to present anything remotely resembling an authentic account of Shakespeare's original intentions; how many more of these travesties you propose to stage; and how you justify the massive taxpayer subsidies which allow you to subject your audience to these pathetic whims.

 On September 20, I sent a further email:

I emailed you several weeks ago asking for my money back, having bought tickets for King John in the naïve belief that the title role would be played by a man. So far you have not responded at all. Your website promises replies. When can I expect one?

Brexit: we're doomed

Nightmare scenario: Brexit postponed again. Boris gets his election. He does not win as the Brexit vote is split by Nigel Farage’s Brexit party.

Corbyn gets the keys to Number 10 with the support of the SNP and pledges two referendums - on Brexit and Scottish independence.

All over by Christmas.

Oright orchid?

With murder and mayhem on the streets of the West Midlands, what do the law-abiding do? We stay at home and watch what one of its own stars calls the ‘disgustingly violent’ Peaky Blinders.
With gangland stabbings and shootings turning parts of the West Midlands into no-go areas and the police incapable of getting to grips with it, we would appear to be in the midst of a new crime-wave.
That’s why Boris Johnson’s temporary Government is promising more money for the police, more money for prisons and a crackdown on foreign criminals evading deportation.
Yet we are deluged with programmes like the much-hyped and widely-praised Peaky Blinders which can best be described as televised ‘crime-porn’. It makes the whole evil world of crooks and gangsters look glamorous and attractive even as it is pretending to moralise about how debilitating it all is.

There's a new series of Peaky Blinders, switched to BBC1 to get a bigger audience, with all the usual stylised violence and cruelty.
The series is so well put together - great music, atmospheric lighting, Black Country museum backgrounds and all - it invites us to look back on what supposedly happened 80 years ago with sepia-tinged nostalgia.
Next month there’s to be ‘The Legitimate Peaky Blinders Festival’ in Birmingham, so-called, it must be assumed, because someone has already tried to make an illegitimate, knock-off version, which seems strangely apt really.
Helen McRory, who plays Aunt Polly in the series, admits it is so ‘disgustingly violent’ she can’t watch it.
She goes on to defend this on the grounds that it would otherwise ‘normalise’ violence and that, in the series, these terrible crimes damage the criminals as well as their victims.
She says: ‘It should be horrifying and you should have the people who are responsible for the violence either unable to self-medicate or having mental health problems, or all the things that do happen to people, if you kill other people – because it is not a natural state of affairs.
‘And anybody who looks at the violence of Peaky Blinders and some sort of gun slashing scheme and thinks, “That exactly is what I want to do”…I mean, sick.’
She’s right to say anyone who wanted to copy the show’s violence might well be sick but the malign influence of television can’t be under-estimated. And our couch-potato willingness to embrace these shows must play a part in adding to the sickness.
It's not as if Peaky Blinders were a one-off. The majority of shows on mainstream television seem to involve criminals, usually murderers. And it is rare indeed to find any straightforward division between the goodies and the baddies.
Take Killing Eve, another widely-praised crime-porn series, where the impossibly glamourous hired assassin, who may be called Villanelle, ends up in some perverse relationship with Eve, the woman who is supposedly bringing her to justice.
Not an episode passes without Villanelle bumping off someone, often with a wry smile to camera as her victim is done-in thanks to some innovative or off-beat method of our anti-heroine’s devising.
This is all made seductively entertaining, to the point where we are far from horrified by these deaths and merely thrilled or excited by the audacity of the outrageously attractive villain.
Crime on television is seen to pay. There is no ‘moral compass’ pointing out what is right and what is not. There is a great deal of crime and hardly any punishment.
The moral ambiguity is everywhere, even in relatively straightforward, bland shows like Midsomer Murders or Endeavour.
Wherever you look on TV, the goodies always turn out to be baddies, the police are invariably corrupt while ‘the system’ is rigged in favour of the rich.
The rich themselves, as well as figures of power or authority such as politicians (especially if they are men) are always crooked.
Successful businesses are even worse - they have to be polluting, uncaring, malign money-making machines run by unpleasant, greedy selfish people.
That means even if the business itself isn’t breaking the law - polluting rivers, covering up blunders or something similar - it’s entirely understandable if criminals feel the need to rip them off.
All of this is part of the fun. These shows need to keep the viewers guessing. They have to mislead us as, in many cases, the intrigue is all about ‘whodunnit’ so there must be several plausible killers with good reasons to want one or more of the victims dead.
Out on the mean streets of the Midlands, it’s doubtful if many of the drugs gang members who go around knifing one another sit down quietly on a Sunday evening for a nice episode of Vera.
Yet the constant displays of violence and dead bodies, often in grisly detail, on our TV screens night after night must surely help to create a world in which such behaviour is increasingly seen as normal.
At the very least, like violent video games, crime-porn makes the unacceptable look attractive and without real-life consequences.
It's all very well for Helen McRory to write people off as ‘sick’ if they copy the violence of Peaky Blinders. We would all agree. But this is what we give ourselves as entertainment. Doesn’t that make us all just a bit ‘sick’ as well?
I’m not advocating censorship. There’s no point, these days, when things like the obscenity laws no longer apply. But must we be quite so fulsome in our praise for these crime-porn TV shows? Could the TV companies not tone down the violence a little? Do they bear no responsibility at all for the terrible real-life crimes on our streets?
In the end, I suppose, we get the television we deserve. But if they must keep broadcasting Peaky Blinders, couldn’t they at least employ a couple of actors capable of delivering a genuine Brummie accent?

Lying, cheating, money-grubbing bastards #8 British Airways

British Airways are a failing airline. Every time we travel with them, there’s a problem (plus the food is repulsive) but our recent experience is the worst so far.

Having recently been obliged to re-book an outward flight to Peru following a death in the family, I was shocked to learn from Cox & Kings, the travel agency, that BA insisted on cancelling both the outward and return flights and obliged me to book two new return tickets, even though we were proposing to come back on the same day as the original booking. 

Cox & Kings would not disclose the precise amount we were obliged to pay to BA in addition to our original booking for reasons of ‘commercial confidentiality’, apparently, but the total extra cost of £2,202 per person (£4,404) comprised of three elements: a pair of one-way internal flights in Peru; one night in an airport hotel; and a pair of world traveller plus return tickets from Gatwick to Lima with BA. It is reasonable to assume these BA tickets must have cost at the very least £1,500 per person and probably even more. 

I explained this to BA and asked: Can you please explain why it was necessary to buy two return tickets, rather than simply changing the date of the outward flights and retaining the original return bookings, and how this can be justified?

Their reply was incomprehensible so I asked them to explain themselves more clearly. I got no further answer. This is the original response:

Thanks for contacting our Press Office about your experience when you travelled to Lima last month.  I'm sorry you are unhappy with the cost you incurred to change your booking.  I know this must be disappointing, especially as you were looking to change this due to a bereavement.  Please accept my condolences for your loss.   

I've checked your booking and I can see you were initially booked in the lowest booking class in our World Traveller Plus cabin.  Your travel agent called us on 07 May to ask how much it would be to make a change to the booking.  Your agent was advised the booking was a trade deal and as such they would need to go by the deal fare rules.  Our Trade Support team had no further contact with your agent.

On 09 May your agent has changed the dates of the booking.  They have also changed the booking class to more flexible tickets in World Traveller Plus.  To make a change there would have been a change fee along with any difference in fares.  We can't see how much you were charged for your booking or the change however, it appears there may not have been any lower fares available.  This may explain why there was a greater cost than you expected to pay to make the changes.  Your agent should have made you aware of the rules of your ticket.  I'm sorry this doesn't appear to have been the case.  

Thanks once again for getting in touch and for giving me the chance to explain our position.  I do hope despite this experience we can welcome you on board in the future.  Please let me know if you need any further assistance. 

Best regards

Lyndsey Gaff
British Airways Customer Relations

New book on sale now

www.eldredpottinger.co.uk

My new novel, coming soon

This is my new book, coming out soon. If you'd like to know more about it, please go to www.eldredpottinger.co.uk

Lying, cheating, money-grubbing bastards #7 Amazon

Amazon claim they are becoming ‘earth’s most customer-centric company’. I’m not surprised, assuming ‘customer-centric’ means circling the customer like a vulture waiting to pounce even when the poor victim is still alive.
Amazon have taken three payments of £197.99 each for one item priced at £197.99 (a croquet set, since you ask).
One illegally stolen £197.99 has been repaid to a hitherto non-existent Amazon account which means I can only spend the money with this predator.
The other has simply been taken from my credit card and not repaid.
Naturally I have spoken at length to various Amazon operatives who either don’t understand the problem or can’t be arsed to do anything about it or maybe both.
Even when they promise to repay the money they say it will take three to five ‘business days’ for it to be re-credited to my credit card (not that it has been).
That, in itself, is a bloody cheek from this non-taxpaying behemoth given that it takes our money instantaneously and I don’t suppose there will ever be any compensation for their use of my cash since the beginning of May when I they took the first payment of £197.99 and failed to deliver the goods.
One Amazon operative said in an email: ‘On this occasion, I've now escalated this matter to the relevant department for full refund for this payment.’
That was more than a week ago. No sign of the money, of course, though this person did promise: ‘To serve you better I've created a follow up and I will contact you again, once we get an update from our billing team.
‘Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience; I hope you'll understand that we are interdependent and there are some areas that can only be addressed by another department.’
No I don’t understand and to add insult to injury the sign-off to the email declares: ‘Your feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company’ (their capital letters).
It could be that the people at Amazon are from another planet therefore they don’t understand what a customer-centric company looks like here on earth. I presume they’re based in Uranus which is where they can stick their customer-centric service.

Lying, cheating, money-grubbing bastards #6 Apple

I started writing this while listening to some truly abominable musak and waiting for an Apple person to transfer me to another Apple person to sort out why they are refusing my Visa card payment for a renewed subscription to the ‘Express & Star’ newspaper app.

I have already spent half an hour talking to them. They said the problem was with Barclaycard even though I earlier spent half an hour talking to Barclaycard who said there was no problem at their end.

So I then went back to Barclaycard and told them Apple said the problem was at their end. They continued to deny it. Eventually a Barclaycard person, the fourth I spoke to, agreed to call Apple and the Apple person and the Barclaycard person had a conversation while I was hanging on the line.

I was then transferred to the first Apple person and 40 minutes into this call I am waiting to repeat everything all over again to another Apple person who will, as usual, want to know my inside leg measurement, the name of my great-great grandmother and the first concert I ever went to.

This is all so unutterably tedious I could scream. Now, one hour and five minutes into my third call, Apple have admitted there is a block on my card, agree they don’t know why, accept it should be lifted but don’t know how to do it. The Apple person has supposedly agreed to talk to a colleague and one of them will allegedly phone me back. I am not holding my breath.

They did call back. They said the card had been banned three years ago due to some unauthorised transactions. I have been using this card ever since. Suddenly they announce it’s banned. They cannot – that is to say, they will not – un-ban it.

I hate Apple.

Lying, cheating, money-grubbing bastards #5 Barclays Bank

Yes, you have power of attorney. Yes, you have the right to manage the money in this account. But no, you do not have power to conduct telephone banking.
Therefore we cannot stop the two cheques you want stopped, even if they have been stolen and could be cashed in by criminals.
You must go to a branch, if you can find one that’s open and staffed by someone vaguely capable of handling your request to stop a cheque.
That might take you a day or two – our opening times are not advertised widely and of course you can’t just phone up a branch and find out when they are prepared to open their doors to their victims, sorry I mean customers – and the cheques might have been cashed by then.
Hard luck.

 

Lying, cheating, money-grubbing bastards #4 Trip Advisor

Trip Advisor is not there to offer objective reviews of hotels and holiday destinations – it’s there entirely to sell, sell, sell.
Which is why it rejected my review of Nonsuch Bay Resort in Antigua. I made a point of saying we booked our holiday though an independent agency called Tropic Breeze and included a link to their website.
Trip Advisor don’t sell holidays through Tropic Breeze so they don’t get included in the review. In the end, I put up this review instead:

Banned
I wrote a review for This website about how good the hotel was but as I mentioned a travel agency they rejected it. It's a great hotel and we had a good time but trip advisor is crooked.

Here's the original review, rejected by Trip Advisor:

Don’t worry, be happy

We booked this hotel through Tropic Breeze who were really good, charged us less than we expected and secured us a room up-grade so if you're looking to travel to the Windies I highly recommend them.
As for the hotel, it was fab. Our room overlooking the beach was marvellous. It was a suite with its own sitting room, kitchen and balcony as well as large bedroom and big bathroom.
The food was exceptionally good for an all-inclusive hotel (plus you don't have to wear a hateful wristband).
The staff were among the friendliest and most helpful we have met anywhere, plus they had a sense of humour.
We particularly enjoyed the sailing, which is suitable for anyone from absolute beginners onwards. The water is warm if you capsize so don't be too anxious. And the instructors are exceptional: patient, helpful and concerned about safety.
Nonsuch Bay is not the poshest place in Antigua and it is somewhat cut off so you may need to hire a car if you want to explore. It also faces south-east so darkness descends early and there are none of the stunning sunsets to be had on the other side of the island.
But don't let that put you off. We really enjoyed our holiday and hope to return.
Several hotel staff said to us during our ten days at Nonsuch Bay: 'If you're happy, I'm happy.' It sounds a bit corny and they may be encouraged to use this phrase by the hotel management but we felt they really meant it.

Lying, cheating, money-grubbing bastards #3 BT

I knew it was a mistake. The moment I decided to ring BT to tell them how slow my superfast broadband was, I knew I would regret it.
Call me brave, call me foolhardy, I rang them anyway. Inspired by the latest attack on BT by a committee of MPs complaining about its terrible ‘broadbad’ service, I thought it was time to tackle the issue head-on.
Using BT’s own test on my computer I find I am enjoying a service of 5.09 Megabits per second (Mbps) though I am paying for somewhere between 27 to 36 Mbps.
So I call them and the first bloke I speak to says (and I quote): ‘You are not on superfast, it’s a basic copper connection you have there and 5 Mbps is the expected speed for your connection.’
He says superfast fibre optic broadband is actually available; I just haven’t got it. I point out I only switched to BT because I was promised superfast broadband so he says he’ll talk to a colleague.
‘You are on copper,’ he says again. ‘You are definitely not on superfast.’
Several minutes later I am transferred to a woman and I have to explain the whole thing once again. She listens and asks if we’re talking about a business line. I say we’re not so she tells me she can’t deal with it and I am transferred one more.
After a lengthy pause I have the pleasure of explaining the situation for a third time. I spend the next 36 minutes, followed by a brief pause to test the line, and a second bout of 23 minutes, in conversation with a woman whose English is not all that clear. This may have something to do with being based in Bombay.
Her first announcement comes as a shock as it completely contradicts her colleague. She says: ‘You are already connected to fibre optic.’
At this point I may have lost my sense of humour.
While I am waiting for her to carry out various tests and listening to something which would once have been called music but which is just a hiss and crackle down the line from India, I have time to reflect on the MPs’ report.
A couple of BT goons got into trouble for laughing at the report but with luck the Government will do something about the plan to separate BT from BT Openreach, the company which owns the nation’s broadband infrastructure. When 121 MPs agree the service is ‘dire’ surely someone will do something.
Breaking BT’s monopoly would be welcome to thousands of people whose lives are made a misery by the company’s bureaucratic indifference.
A self-employed friend spent weeks without any broadband as BT failed to effect repairs. She almost went out of business.
My hairdresser says when she complained about the slowness of her ‘superfast’ broadband she was told it was probably caused by the neighbour’s Christmas tree lights.
Worse still, another friend was visited three times by BT Openreach engineers after he complained about his ‘poor to atrocious’ broadband.
The third engineer declared the problem was the copper wires down the road being aged and fairly useless.
‘He told me to call BT Openreach,’ says my friend. ‘Even though he was from BT Openreach he couldn’t do anything about it himself.
‘I called BT and they said go to BT Openreach, which is part of the same company. Openreach said “You have got to speak to BT – only the provider of the line can talk to us”. I went back to BT who said they couldn’t help, I needed to go to Openreach.
‘This has gone on for six months. Ultimately a lady from Madras rang to ask, “Can we close this case now?” I have given up.’
BT says superfast broadband is available to 95 per cent of us and splitting up the company would leave less money for investment. It also says we’re ahead of most other countries.
If it’s so good, how come it’s so bad?
Ofcom is investigating the idea of splitting up BT but we can be pretty sure it will do whatever the telecoms giant tells it to do.
Meanwhile my friend in Bombay is back on the line saying she can’t find anything wrong so she will have to send out an engineer. If the fault is on my premises, rather than out in the road, I will have £129.99 taken from my bank account.
I balk at this so she offers yet another test which involves unscrewing the cover of the connector which brings BT into the house and plugging the router directly into the socket inside. Yet again the speed is tested.
The good news is it’s now 16.88 Mbps. Not exactly superfast but better than superslow. At the end of it all, Miss Bombay tells me: ‘You have been very patient and cooperative.’
Which makes me wonder how mad her other customers must get.

PS Six months later my BT broadband bill has soared to £26 per month and the speed is back at 3.4 Mbps. I ring to discuss the situation and half an hour later take part in an on-line diagnosis with an operative in India which gets us nowhere. Eventually she transfers me to some other department to discuss my extortionate bill and after a few moments the phone goes dead. Naturally they don’t bother to call back even though they certainly have the number.

Lying, cheating, money-grubbing bastards #2 VW

As we all know, those clever chaps at Volkswagen have duped the entire world with their baffling emissions scam so we had to take our Golf into the dealer to have it set right.

At the same time they gave it a check-up and discovered a nail in a tyre. The tyre was perfectly functional until they removed it whereupon the tyre deflated and they declared it impossible to repair.
So far, fair enough I suppose. But they then announced that, because the car has tyre-pressure sensors which only work if the tread on each tyre is the same, it would require not one but two front tyres.
The un-punctured tyre had 5mm of tread (like the punctured one) and was good for many more miles. But it would have to go because otherwise the warning light would come on, stay on and we would somehow be in breach of the warranty. Or some such cobblers.
After much argument, we submitted so we had to buy a pair of tyres and throw away a perfectly good one.
What is the point of an allegedly sophisticated system if it can't cope with something as simple as one tyre with 8mm of tread and one of 5mm. And if it's so wonderful, how come it never noticed the nail in the tyre in the first place?
This comes after VW has tried and failed on several occasions to deal with the Bluetooth phone system which means anyone speaking to the driver hears what they said echoing back to them after they have spoken. This is, apparently, standard on VW cars. So be warned.

Lying, cheating, money-grubbing bastards #1 BUPA

The Government shouldn't be surprised local authorities need more money to look after our growing population of old people. After all, part of the problem is caused by the rise in the minimum wage.
Unfortunately, given how tough their jobs are, many care home workers have to get by on £7.20 an hour rising by 30p in April.
That's not a huge amount of money for the individual but if you add together the 1.6 million care workers in the country and give everyone a 30p-an-hour pay rise, that's virtually £1 billion.
Suddenly the minimum wage starts to look quite expensive and the money has to come from somewhere.
Given that people are living longer, councils can't save the money by cutting the service, assuming we wish to treat our elderly with a modicum of dignity.
So that means it comes either from us as taxpayers, from us as care home customers, or both.
Yet the whole sector seems like a licence to print money. For a start, councils only have to foot the bill for the care of a pensioner when the individual’s assets have been whittled down to £23,250.
Until that point, a pensioner has to find the fees out of their own pocket. That almost certainly means selling their home, if they own one, and any other assets they might possess. It means losing all their hard-earned savings leaving nothing to pass on to their children and grandchildren.
This may be fair enough, I suppose. Why should the taxpayer subsidise someone's old age just so they can hand on a legacy to their family?
But there is something dispiriting about the way a lifetime of work disappears in a matter of months. The price for growing old has never been higher.
I know of one elderly couple, confined to separate care homes 50 miles apart, whose wealth has disappeared completely. No surprise, really – their fees were £10,000 a month.
If you are poor enough for councils to meet the cost of your care, homes will

charge about £25,000 a year. Pay for it yourself and it’s £35,000-plus.
And for anyone who goes private – the majority of old people – once a home has got its claws into you, there is no escape. An elderly relative incarcerated in a BUPA care home has seen her fees soar by £199.36 a week – 25 per cent – in two years. Her fees are £51,667-a-year.
The home is nothing special. A new manager every six months means the turnover in employees is bewildering. It is never fully-staffed.
Many carers are kind, helpful and willing but lack direction and seem forgetful, if not negligent. Bad management is to blame but what can you expect if the boss changes twice a year?
In its latest ransom note, BUPA says if my relative is unhappy about the cost she’s free to go elsewhere.
This nonsense is the vilest insult of all. Where could she go? The upheaval involved would be intolerable for a frail old lady, as BUPA know only too well. That is why they can charge whatever they like. They have a captive clientele.
To make matters worse, the family is now afraid to take up arms on our relative's behalf for fear they would retaliate in some way and make her plight even worse than it is already. It’s risky even to complain when they fit her with hearing aids with flat batteries, which they do with distressing regularity.
No wonder they could afford to pay chief executive Stuart Fletcher over £2 million last year. He’s now left and finance director Evelyn Bourke, who got £1.3 million in 2015, has taken over and no doubt gets a huge pay rise. Even Labour Peer Lord Leitch, BUPA’s non-executive chairman, trousers £385,000 for his part-time job.
BUPA is allegedly a non-profit-making organisation. Yet this disgusting rip-off merchant made £278.3 million profits last year which it stuffs under the mattress to top up its reserves. It has a quite staggering £3.6 billion in the bank and still whinges about the minimum wage.
And if one organisation can be this unscrupulously grasping, no doubt many others are as well.
Luckily local authorities are in a position where collective bargaining can at least deliver better value for money than individuals get.
But it's still a costly business made worse by the fact that a three per cent council tax rise in most parts of the country raises a whole lot less than it does in the rich South East.
So where is the extra money to come from? Local taxpayers will doubtless have to cough up as usual but the Government should take a look at organisations like BUPA.
In the past, Chancellors have imposed ‘windfall’ taxes on oil companies and banks which have exploited their position in the market. If BUPA can get away with imposing fee increases on customers of its don’t-care homes, it’s time the Government did the same on its excessive profits.