Communicating

I have always written a lot of letters. I use a collection of fountain pens and different ink depending on my mood. It costs me a small fortune in postage stamps but it's worth it.

My last post was about oral non-face-to-face communication but when I was a youngster letters were still the way almost everyone communicated with their relatives and so on who didn't live nearby.  

Then came The Internet and home computers which allowed us to send emails. Email was cemented in the public consciousness with the notorious “you've got mail” sound of email arriving for AOL users, which formed the cornerstone of the 1998 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy, "You've Got Mail".

Then, for me, came Blogging in June 2007 as a way of communicating what I was doing in Scotland and New Zealand to my friends and family in the 'other' country.

In 2004 Facebook arrived but I was never part of it until 2010 when it was possible to 'post' your Blogger post on Facebook using Networked Blogs. That was discontinued by Facebook long ago but I stayed on Facebook though I rarely post.

As well as emails we could text each other on our mobile phones.

Twitter (Now called X and owned by Elon Musk) arrived 21 March 2006

WhatsApp (Meta) arrived in 2009

Facetime (Apple) June 24, 2010

Instagram (Meta)  started on 6 October 2010.

Messenger (Facebook) in 2011

Telegram (Pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov) on the 14 August 2013.

TikTok (ByteDance) in September 2016.

In 1944 (the year of my birth) a simple letter in the UK was 2½d which is the equivalent of 56p today. In fact a first class stamp today for the same letter is £1.35. However, except for  communicating by landline or mobile phone which are usually included in monthly rental these days all the other methods I've mentioned above are available "free". 

Of course many of the platforms and apps I've mentioned can be used for free voice calls as well as messaging 

What writing this post has done is make me realise that our old concept of communicating using post and landline phone is now verging on irrelevant despite the fact that we communicate much more than we ever did. 

I suppose the next thing would be a "Beam me up Scottie" scenario. 

SID 62. Commercial Loyalty

I have been a customer of  BT (British Telecom) and it's predecessor the General Post Office for the last half century give or take a week or two. They have provided my landline phone service and my broadband. I have very little to complain about these days because the service is pretty good and fairly reliable given the ancient final delivery infrastructure ie the clapped out cables down our road. However they are expensive. 

I have been a customer of Vodafone since 1992 for my cellphone/mobile phone when it was actually difficult to have a contract directly with Vodafone because they marketed through intermediaries. I still have the same base number I was issued with then.

BT have gradually, and sometimes not so gradually, increased what I pay for my service. They keep telling me how good my package is. My package is a landline and broadband. I make no calls on my landline. If I did I would be paying considerably more.

Vodafone, on the other hand, have given me a better deal year on year either increasing what I can use or decreasing what they are charging me.

Vodafone will now provide broadband too over my landline. They will charge me about £30 per month less than BT. 

The contract will start on my birthday. Happy Birthday.

Bye bye BT. 

Stopping Nuisance Calls

I recall many years ago how my Mother worried about telephone calls which she answered but where the person had rung off or didn't speak. Even then cold sales calls were common and a considerable irritation.  I think I disliked the people who made them to an irrational degree because they upset my Mother so much. She couldn't believe that sales people could be so thoughtless and so believed that they were trying to see if anyone was in the house so that they could burgle it. 

Until recently I received many such calls each day on my landline. I could have barred international and withheld calls but many of my legitimate calls are international and some friends have withheld numbers. 

Now I have solved the problem with one of the best gadgets that I have ever bought : the BT 8500 phone with Call Guardian which, for numbers not in your address book, enables you to hear who’s calling before you answer, and block those nuisance calls. As nuisance callers never leave a name and are often automated anyway they never even ring out. Brilliant.

Nothing is Secret

Warning:  This post contains indelicate language (but only in the first and last paragraphs).

When I came to live on Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland four decades ago those of us who came from outside the area to work that year realised quickly that life here had a different quality to that to which all of us had been accustomed.  David (of David and Molly fame) turned to me one day shortly after our arrival and said "You know, Graham, people here know that you have farted before you have eaten the beans."

Things are no longer quite the same: amongst other things there has been a significant population change with outward migration of many Island people and an inward migration of people coming here to retire from England.

However the principle of our every move being known has far from lessened.

If you use Amazon, then, every time you look at it, the pages you visit are logged and you will soon receive an email making suggestions for things you might like to consider buying or, perhaps, tempting you with a price reduction in the thing that you were looking at.  Amazon are by no means alone.  Lands End has altered its marketing strategy in a number of ways but targeting you when you look at their site is one of them.  There are many companies now doing this.

Have you noticed, for example, that when you visit some websites with adverts that the adverts are tailored to you personally?  I suppose because I live in two places and move around a lot it is much more obvious.  British websites that I visit when I'm in NZ will have adverts tailored to my NZ life and even to Napier.

The obvious thing if one is concerned about one's privacy would be to disable cookies on the computer.  It is amazing, though, how many websites will not work if you disable cookies.  I discovered this when I tried to log in to British Airways one day. Their website said that I could not access it because I had cookies disabled.  I think I am writing saying that some banks do the same.

Today, however, even I was surprised when I realised that one of the posts on Facebook was from FlyBe telling me the cost of the flight I had looked at a few days ago and suggesting that if I went back to their website then I might get a better offer (leastways I think that was the temptation being offered):

For those of us with a computer and who use the internet and who also have a cellphone (and particularly a smartphone with GPS) our every move is logged, our every thought is logged, our every want is logged and there is no escape.  Now my neighbours may have precious little idea about what I'm doing but Google, Yahoo and just about everyone else knows that I have metaphorically farted before I have eaten the virtual beans.  And they know about you too!!

My name is Graham and I'm addicted to my cellphone.

There was an item on the BBC's News at Six this evening about the number of people addicted to their smartphones.  "Some people" the reporter said with an accusatorial incredulance "actually use their smartphones whilst on the loo."  There was a blog post this evening on CJ's blog entitled Must Just Send a Quick Text... .  I left my mobile (cell) phone at home by mistake for several hours on Tuesday and I survived.  I've had  mobile phones for over 21 years.  I have had a post about my phones in draft for several months but haven't yet posted it. 

I learned the Greek alphabet from The Schoolboy's Pocket Book  at the age of about 11 whilst sitting on the loo. It's been invaluable for the last 50 years when doing crosswords.  Time and motion study proponent Frank Bunker Gilbreth used to put information on the back of the bathroom door for the children to learn.  I have never attempted to work out how much of one's life is spent on the loo but it has always seemed to me that it is not time to be wasted.

I have an HTC Desire S smartphone.  Like my camera, it is usually within reaching distance.  It gets switched off or put in silent mode when it is socially unacceptable for it to burst into some form of life.  I use it to communicate orally, by SMS and by email.  I use it to access the internet for information and use many apps.

I see nothing wrong with any of that and I am not apologising for it.

My name is Graham and I am a phonaholic.

Success With BT

Well I can hardly believe it.  I emailed BT this morning using their standard contact form. This afternoon my cellphone rang but I managed to lose the call when taking the phone out of my pocket.  Immediately my landline rang.  It was a very friendly Digital Care Advisor called Sharath Kumar from BT.  He had, he assured me, rectified the difficulty I had experienced and I would have the requested service within 24 hours.  In fact it had been put on my account when I checked a couple of hours later.  I have to confess considerable surprise and pleasure at their speedy response and action.  It would, however, have been much better if they hadn’t caused the problem in the first place.

Scriptor: Don’t Read This!

I don’t think anyone is likely over the years to have had more problems with telecoms and SKT TV providers than the Scriptor Senex household.  I, on the other hand, have been blissfully free of such problems.  I’ve never said much about that because I knew that I’d be tempting fate.  This morning, however, I think I have managed to find the ultimate frustration: the circuitous ordering system. This occurs where, having pressed the 7 keys needed to get to the menu you require, your option does not appear.  So you try again.  No, it really isn’t there.   So why do I not, as it exhorts me to do, use the internet to place my order.  This is the reason I am ringing you BT!  Do you really think I would telephone a telecoms company unless I had to?  The irony is that I have remained a loyal BT Customer for many years: many years longer, in fact, than most of the people likely to be dealing with my complaint at BT will have been on this earth!  Sobering thought really.  And now I have spent nearly an hour and have eventually resorted to emailing them.  I’ll take bets that I’ll get an automated reply saying someone will contact me and then in a few months I’ll get a phone call trying to sell me something entirely different: with a 12 month contract period of course.

So why do I want to contact BT?  My calls to NZ are increasing and with more usage comes more cost (it’s worth it!).  BT provided a second number for use with my Broadband at a reduced tariff for calls abroad.  The quality of calls on that number can be as good as ‘ordinary’ calls.  On the other hand, as has happened recently, the quality has been bad enough to be off-putting.  So I decided to pay the price and get ‘International Freedom’.  If anyone out there knows the secret of trying to buy a product off BT will they please let me know.  On the other hand TalkTalk offer the same phone and broadband package with international calling (which friends have) for half the price I pay.  So, I ask myself, why am I staying loyal to BT.  Why indeed?  In fact if I don’t get a response from BT the question may well answer itself.

In the meantime I shall go and have breakfast, do a crossword and get on with my Monday.

 

A Dead Mouse And Other Stories

Sitting as I am at the table in Helen's house with CJ and Helen both working away at their various tasks and with conversation on all sorts of things flowing at the same time I thought that I would show you some of the things that have amuse me over the last few days.

CJ's mouse died. RIP.

CJ's phones died. Long live the (new) phone

CJ is not interested in gadgets except insofar as they are necessary to life. Many years ago he got excited over a telephone in the office because it had six re-dial buttons! This is the first time since then that he has got excited over a phone: because it has large touch screen alphanumerics. Strange.

Big brother is watching you. Er, the terrestial one!

And a couple for Dave - in Exeter City Centre