As a fellow hippie and record buyer from your mail order outlet in the '70's, (I bought the amazing Jimi Hendrix 'Live Experience' vinyl bootleg LP advertised quite blatantly and illegally in 'Sounds'), I prefer your record marketing skills to those of the Internet. Indeed, even your trains and aircraft are preferable, and Usaine Bolt on your TV ads doesn't cut any ice with me, either.
You see, yesterday my 'Superhub' arrived to make my Virgin Internet faster, more streamlined, yada-yada-yada, but the problem was, (as with everyone who gets one), is that we have to ring your engineers to get it installed. And what do I get, (as usual, I am sorry to say), a foreign accented gentleman and a bad phone line so that I can't understand a word he says.
When I ordered this 'Superhub,' I told the (easy to understand English guy), that the reason we sounded as if I was on planet Earth and he was on planet Mars was due to the fact that I have been waiting at least 3 years to get my actual piece of cable renewed.
You see, the cable from Main Virgin Box 100 yards across the way to the little box screwed to my wall should be in one complete piece. But it has been joined by your engineers, (or maybe they were NTL, or Nynex, or Cable and effing Wireless, I can't remember, but we have had this darned service which Mr. Branson ended up buying, for a very long time), twice, and in so doing the phone line sounds like bacon and eggs frying. Good job my wife has a mobile, good job no one except the eternal wrong number callers, (asking for the guy who had the line before us, 25 years ago), and people asking if I'd like a PPI refund, or this would annoy me more than ever.
Now, after ordering this 'Superhub' and talking to the English guy, he felt quite annoyed at this, (or perhaps he's paid to sound annoyed to make me feel like he's doing his job?), but he told me that he would send an engineer around. And he did so, last Monday (20th August), and I showed him the joins, and told him about the previous visits by his colleagues, which had brought forth: "Oh, the manhole over the road is full of water and refuse, and we can't find your cable," and he said "Well, it's a bit of a job, but we'll get to it at some point," (like, when?), and went away.
Now, going by the above, I am not going to hold my breath, as it seems to me as if they can't be bothered to do this job, (as it's a little bit difficult, and they might get their hands dirty, and they can't be arsed until my service doesn't work at all, and they are force into doing something), but in the meantime, as and when I ring someone, especially YOUR engineers, I can't understand a word they are saying!
So, my fellow vinyl record buying hippie friend, what are you going to do now? I had heart surgery in 2006 and I don't want the associated palpitations from ringing your people who note my call, get a bloke around to have a look, and then do bugger-all about it. Can you please tell them to get off their lazy arses and fix my darned phone line! Thank you.
