But not, I am afraid, just yet.
New readers start here. Those familiar with the first chapter of my telecommunications woe may wish to skip a few paragraphs.
In the past 11 days, I have probably spent three hours and at least £30 of phone time trying to have a telephone line and internet service installed at my London home. This was promised by last Wednesday (phone) and Friday (Broadband). Neither has happened.
Each call from BT and other kiosks, and - at heaven's knows what cost - my French mobile, to find out what is going on has led to interminable waits on the line - sometimes to be cut off, sometimes to break through to a real human voice only to be told I have to be transferred to another queue, sometimes to give up in despair.
My patience snapped after one especially long and totally wasted such experience and I rang the BT press office, more at that stage to obtain a balancing response for use here than in the hope that it would put things right. However, a press officer did kindly offer to do what he could to "escalate" the connections.
Nothing happened in the next 24 hours so I tried again. I thought it better to be able to return to the press officer with an update, any update, so started with a foolish attempt to get through to someone by conventional means. Result: after another long wait (I was kicking heels waiting for a visa office to open so this was not in itself a problem) I found myself talking to someone in what I think was a call centre in India.
She eventually told me there was no trace of my orders at all. Even though I had been able to quote various order and account numbers that I had already been given, the orders had apparently been cancelled. She could not say why and seemed surprised when I turned down her offer to "transfer" me to someone who could.
At the press office, I received more encouragement, more sympathy, more apologies that the service I was receiving was so "disappointing".
And that's where Mike comes in. While I was underground with no mobile signal, he left a message saying he was on the case. He also left a contact number. Yippee!
I rang it., and very quickly heard a voice. A recorded voice. A recorded voice telling me I was "held in a queue".............
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