Various updates:

Having watched and enjoyed the two OK Go videos on YouTube (possibly now to be known as GooTube or perhaps YouGoog? See here…) I took the plunge and bought the album. For those of you similarly Scottish in outlook, the cheapest place I could find it was here.

Alfie, the mad hound is coming back for one night only while his new owners have a night in a hotel to celebrate their anniversary.

Dave is going to be here on the same night with his lovely other half. D’oh!

The new Mondeo should be arriving on or around 17th November. And what do Ford do? Only announce a new version to come out early next year. Argh!! It looks absolutely superb though, which is great because it’s always been a good car to drive but boring to look at.

A big “thanks” to Brandish, the Vauxhall dealer in Coventry. Mrs G-T’s Astra packed up yesterday with the following irritating problem; having driven over to the other side of town and locked the door with the deadlock facility it quickly became apparent that the lock wouldn’t unlock! Obviously the whole point of a deadlock is that it is difficult to get into the car…

My, perhaps not entirely helpful, suggestion was to climb in through the hatchback. Once my colleague had updated me on the longer-term implications of this course of action I called her back to suggest that this may not be a great idea as you can’t open the doors (or hatchback) from inside the car with the deadlocks activated. I’m sure she would have loved climbing through the window to get out at her destination Daisy Duke style. Especially when she realised that she’d have to go back in through the hatchback to close the window again

Anyway, much against my better judgement, I thought I’d better call the Vauxhall dealer to sort it out and wow! They did what they said, when they said it. They called back when they said they would. They told me when the car would be ready, and it was. They told me how much it would be before they started work and that was, to the penny, exactly the cost. And they even delivered it back to us without charging any additional cost!

Their service was so excellent that I’d happily put a car in there again, and that is genuinely the first dealership that I’ve ever said that about. That’s Brandish in Coventry folks. Buy your Vauxhall or Chevrolet there NOW! And no, I don’t work for them…

An unusual few days then chez G-T. Just need to get the Punto starting again and TIM the Honda 550 running properly and all will be well with the world.

What on *earth* are Top Up TV doing?

In an effort to save some cash when Jo packed in her full-time job we bought a Freeview box and cancelled our NTL TV. The box was from Argos and, at the time, included a free Top Up TV card. TUTV cost £7.99 a month which was a lot cheaper than the NTL package at the time.

A few weeks later, having proved that it all works OK (the Freeview website says that you can’t get digital TV where we live – it’s wrong…) I bought another box via eBay that also accepts the TUTV card so we could swap the card between lounge and bedroom TVs.

Now, TUTV have launched ‘Top Up TV Anytime‘, a new product which involves the mandatory purchase of a new set-top box containing a digital video recorder, and the gist of the existing customer option is this:

As a ‘valued’ customer, you pay us £100 (instead of £200) for a NEW set-top box and pay us a tenner a month instead of the £8 you pay at the moment and we’ll give you a couple of extra channels and the facility to record and pause live TV just like Sky+.

I called them up to find out what would happen about my second box to be told that I’d have to pay full price for the second box. So that’s £300 up front to replace our current boxes and £10/month instead of £8. So I suggest that I’ll happily stick with the existing service, only to be told that “your current service will be discontinued early next year. Cue slight apoplexy on the part of RGT.

“So, as a ‘loyal customer’ who doesn’t even WANT to have a digital video recorder, you’re happy for me to pay you £300 to replace my current boxes, both of which work perfectly, and then pay £10/month to have a couple of extra channels?”

“I understand your comments sir, but that’s unfortunately what you need to do to retain our service.”

I then point out that if I took Sky’s multi-room option with two channel packs it would cost me less for the first whole year than having TUTV Anytime to which the response was that not many people are like me and have more than one box in the house.

I’m not sure that TUTV can prove that assertion, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re out of business in a year. You don’t have to register a Freeview box so there’s presumably no easy way to tell how many are in each household. You do have to register the card, but not for each box and I’ve only swapped the card once in the year that we’ve had it.

The final straw occurred last night.

I was watching Pulp Fiction on UK Gold and right at the point 20 minutes from the end where the cafe hold up is taking place, TUTV stopped broadcasting in favour of a promotional message declaring the wonderful new features that are part of TUTV Anytime. Customers watching the classic ‘Casablanca’ on TCM will have had the same experience, although probably with less swearing.

That’s why as soon as I finish typing this post I’m off the bank website to cancel my Direct Debit. And given that NTL are offering a 4 for £40 deal with TV, Broadband, Phone and mobile, and Sky can do multi-room, TV and free broadband for about the same as TUTV Anytime cost I may be changing everything around.

Voting with my feet, metaphorically. It’s the biggest power we have as consumers…

ok go again!

Another great song, but the dance isn’t as cool as the treadmill one. Still, bit of fun eh?