26 March 2010 (Friday) - Phone Calls, Saturn

‘er indoors TM tried to use my credit card this afternoon. Tried, and failed. The bank refused payment. They then sent me a text to tell me to get in touch with their fraud prevention office. After a lot of mucking about I finally got through to someone who’s spoken English was marginally better than my spoken Punjabi. I eventually figured out that they were trying to tell me that my credit card was among thousands they thought had been cloned. I would have thought that they would have warned me of this the moment they realised what had happened. They did not. Instead they just put a stop on the card and waited for it to get refused before doing anything about it. They didn’t seem at all bothered about the inconvenience and embarrassment this had caused me, and they told me that they would continue to refuse to honour the card until I changed the PIN, and told them that I had done so. I’ve now done that – I shall see if the new PIN works tomorrow.


And then another phone call from another person who could barely speak English. This one was from my mobile phone company. Would I like to have a second mobile phone contract with them at a reduced rate? They weren’t offering to reduce my current payments, but wanted me to get a second phone with them. I asked the obvious question. “Why would I want a second phone?” For some reason this question wasn’t included in her script, and so she tried to jibber on with her rehearsed spiel. But I wasn’t having any of it. I asked how many conversations she thought I could conduct simultaneously. She then realised I didn’t want a second phone, and seemed amazed I was turning down such a bargain.


To the astronomy club. Today is three years (to the day) since the club started. Going back through blog entries from a while back, it’s no secret that the club had a very shaky start, but now it’s going from strength to strength. With over seventy paid up members, tonight saw the launch of the club’s solar telescope, a presentation by one of the youngest members on his astro-photography and an invitation for the club to visit the large telescope at Cranbrook school. The highlight of the evening (I’m reliably informed) was my talk on the planet Saturn; most of which I shamelessly blagged from the Internet. This was the eighth talk I’ve given to the astro club, and in retrospect it was somewhat tamer that my usual spiels. Mind you it did feature the Death Star (from Star Wars), Doom Bar ale and a rant about our government. I hope the punters were amused. I’m told that edited highlights might appear on You-Tube at some point…


And so home to check my emails. A message from Facebook – one of my cousins has found me. Over the years I’ve lost touch with so many of my family. The Internet is a great way of keeping in touch…


1 comment:

  1. the talk was brilliant as usual matey, blooming well done!

    ReplyDelete