BT's excuses run dry

You may remember from last week's Round-Up that BT couldn't get a new handset to one of its customers within the promised timescales because she lived in a 'flood area'. This meant she was unable to claim compensation.

That flood area turned out to be at the top of a hill in Harrogate, approximately 20 miles from the nearest flood.

We have since heard from another reader who has been waiting for over two weeks for his line to be fixed. Why the delay? Yep, 'adverse weather conditions', said BT.

Our man lives in the wetlands of Croydon.

BT said that engineering personnel had been reassigned to fix faults in the emergency flood zones. As a result, our Croydon chap too found himself unable to claim compensation for having no home phone for a fortnight.

(Let's ignore the fact that BT did in fact fix the fault at one point, but sadly its engineers got their wires crossed and switched our correspondent's number with a household a few streets away. Suffering from heat-stroke this time perhaps?)

Anyway, our bemused reader contacted Oftel to ensure BT really could use the weather as an excuse not to pay compensation. Oftel said that compensation arrangements were not part of its remit, but "certainly did not endorse" what our man had been told by BT.

Confused? Yep, and you're not alone. Another Round-Up reader, this time a trialist of BT's brand spanking new interactive services, also had cause to complain, having been without a decent connection for about two months (he lives in remote West London, where the ADSL trials started). This individual was told (among other things) that 'lightening had probably damaged the modems'. And, of course, that 'it's the weather - flood damage'.

When he later queried that, he was told: 'It's nothing to do with the weather. Whoever said that was totally wrong.'

Clear as muddy flood water. But we ought to spare a thought for the frazzled call centre agents dealing with the complaints. The over-worked staff member our Croydon man finally got through to (after 25 minutes in an IVR system) said he was very sorry for the delay, and added that he was dealing with over 20 simultaneous calls.

Maybe lots of his colleagues were stuck in floods somewhere...

The UK government still denies there's a proven link between mobile phone use and long-term health problems (see http://www.dti.gov.uk/cii/regulatory/telecomms/telecommsregulations/handsfree_mobilephones.shtml for its position on the hands-free debate).

But it's not taking any chances. Haunted by the image of mad cows cavorting around the countryside foaming at the mouth (and that family who's trying to sue the French and British governments over the BSE debacle), it has decided to force mobile phone operators to issue a written health warning on all new handsets. Better safe than sorry. But what's that warning going to read? "This phone emits dangerous levels of radiation and will therefore fry your brain. Then again it might not. Either way, you can't sue the government now because you've been warned about the risks. Or lack of them."

Dating has stepped into the 21st century, apparently, with the launch of onesaturday.com, a site 'specifically designed for active, single people'.

Its owners reckon there are no other credible lifestyle sites for singles. Its managing editor, Giles Murray, said: "People make a lot of assumptions about the singles status. Characters such as Ally McBeal, the sad flatmate in Attachments, Bridget Jones and Tony in Men Behaving Badly all create a damaging stereotype. [Over 19 million] of the population are single, and most of them are happy, contented and not desperate... we offer quality editorial content... and products for single people, alongside one of the most sophisticated dating search engines available."

Sooo, it's OK to be single, but here's a dating service, just in case...

Almost finally this week, one Italian Round-Up reader was moved to respond to our article about the high-tech backers of the Dome's new owners apparently knowing very little about their involvement (see http://www.silicon.com/a41016 for the original story).

It's a lovely little tale (and before anyone accuses me of taking the mickey out of someone's use of English, I'm not. That isn't the point). Anyway, the email reads: "If I was part of the government, I will go visit the house of the manager in charge. I think that recently is house become much beautifully. I'm Italian and in Italy years ago we had a similar situation, not for a Dome but for a fountain. The money was raised from the government for make a beautiful fountain in a popular road, but the fountain was never installed in the popular road but was in the big house of the manager."

The idea of the Dome ending up in Lord Falconer's back garden is pleasantly surreal. Unless that's what he had in mind all along...

A bit more finally, try this (kindly pointed out to us by an eagle-eyed reader): go to http://www.whois.co.uk , type in Microsoft in the 'search name' bit, select the '.com' extension, and see what you get. Do it quickly before someone official notices. My favourite: MICROSOFT.COM.IS.SECRETLY.RUN.BY.ILLUMINATI.TERRORISTS.NET
Those pesky Linux freaks...

And even more finally, you'll be delighted to know that silicon.com has got into the festive spirit this year. We're giving away lots of booze and a trip to Spain in the run-up to Christmas. 'Surely we have to do something to win these generous prizes?' I hear you cry. Too damned right. We'll be asking a series of searingly easy questions on the site every day. You have to log on and answer them. Tricky huh? It all kicks off on Monday. Good luck.

Until next week...