Excellent day for a barbecue here: hot in the sun, but early enough in the year that there aren’t too many wasps…

I’m not usually one to nerd out over drums, but these Sabian AAX cymbals, just bought by a school I teach in, sound incredible. The word that springs to mind is “buttery” 🤷🏻‍♂️🥁

The Joys of Dealing with Utility Providers

For me, it's a point of principle that I never let utility providers walk all over me, or take advantage. Worryingly often, they fail to issue refunds, forget issue proper bills, or even charge you for a service you don't even have.

They might argue that, with so many customers, it's impossible to administer everything perfectly. A cynic would suggest that, more often than not, they benefit from these errors, so where's the incentive to address them?

Previously, I've had to battle with an electricity company who came to install a new meter, except the installation failed and I was left with the old meter. This didn't stop them generating bills on the ghost meter however, which led to a nasty surprise and a drawn-out arguement over how much was owed.

Then there was the time I discovered our TV company had been charging us for months for a catchup/recording package that our hardware (the hardware _they_ provided) couldn't even deliver.

Don't even get me started on insurance companies...

This morning's fun was with the water company for our old house. Despite having left the property over a month ago, they're still holding onto some credit that was on our account. So I call them (at 8am on a Saturday, otherwise I'll be on hold for hours), and politely ask for it back. At first they tell me I should have requested the refund - and now I've done so they could send me a cheque.

No deal. I explain that I'm owed compensation as the refund is due within 10 working days of the final bill. I'm transferred to a supervisor, who says I didn't get the refund because I cancelled my direct debit. I didn't. "Oh" she says, "maybe we cancelled it on our end..."

After 10 minutes of back and forth, we come to the arrangement of a full refund, plus compensation for the delay. Another small victory for the consumer. The sad thing is, 'victories' like this are usually just a case of the consumer getting fair treatment. The company continues doing the same things, and in many cases people don't notice and are worse off for it.

Still, I'll continue to fight my corner, if only for the warm, fuzzy feeling I get inside after putting a big corporation to rights.


Just hearing that a gig in Europe next month might still go ahead, and I’m over the moon. The goalposts have been moved before, and gigs cancelled last-minute, so I’m trying to be realistic. The anticipation is significant, however.

Finally got round to finishing downloading all 50 zip files of my Google data, each one 2+gb. Then I started deleting things from the account. For the first time in over 12 years there are no emails in my Gmail archive.

My 2011 MacBook Pro still functions fairly smoothly, thanks to a new SSD and upgrading from 4 to 16gb RAM a few years ago. The battery, however, is useless. It sometimes hits 0%, and then repeatedly freezes doing the simplest of tasks.