“[The Nexus One] was so successful, we didn’t have to do a second one. We would view that as positive but people criticised us heavily for that. I called up the board and said: ‘Ok, it worked. Congratulations — we’re stopping.’”
Eric Schmidt is an utter wanker fool.
Over a month long of chasing has gotten me nowhere.
We had some work done to our garden, namely a tree to be taken down, the root to be taken away, and the tree to be logged into firewood, with the ground being levelled.
The word undertaken by Ideal Landscapes (referred to as “Ideal” from here on in) was far from ideal. A catalogue of problems arose after allowing these people to undertake work for us. I guess I should start at the beginning, which is more then “Ideal” could do, as they undertook the work three days early. This wasn’t a massive problem aside from the fact that we had warned our neighbours of the impending work date.
Whilst the tree was indeed taken down, it was also taken away, leaving us without the firewood. Now the tree was between 45-50 feet hight, and around 1.5-2 feet thick at the bottom. Admittedly the wood would have required drying, but that is exactly what we intended to do. Estimates for this amount of firewood amount to anywhere between £200-£500 that I’ve seen so far.
Next, they did indeed take the root out, or some of it. I understand it can be hard to properly get rid of roots, so that is bye the bye I suppose. However, they were also to level the ground, something we spent the best part of a week doing.
“Ideal” left refuse (that they were contracted to take away) not only on our garden, but on our neighbours garden. Fortunately she has been cool about the whole situation, and whilst we gave her a very nice bottle of wine to say thank you, we should probably make that a few more.
And as a final insult, “Ideal” needed to bring in a digger to get the root out, and so had to take down the fence at the bottom of our garden. Far from safely re-attaching it, they simply cut the bolts holding it to the fence posts and left us with a future repair bill.
We paid “Ideal” £475 (inc VAT) for this privilege.
So we sent a letter, detailing why we were unhappy and what we wanted doing. No response. I phoned the number, which re-directs to a mobile, and after several attempts finally got through. Cue apologies, several promises to bring the wood round and sort the fence. Nothing about levelling the ground or getting rid of the rubbish, but I figured that was the best course of action. Of course nothing happened.
I then opened a case with Consumer Direct, the public facing arm of the Office of Fair Trading & Standards, who advised me to send a letter again, recorded, citing the Sales of Goods & Services Act.
So we sent another letter, this time by recorded delivery. This is where things started to get odd. First of all, Royal Mail said they couldn’t deliver it as no one was there to sign. Then a few weeks ago, we had an answer phone message from someone who said that they had lived at the address “Ideal” gave us, and that they had done so for over a year.
A few things strike me as odd here: firstly why would you sign for mail that was addressed to someone you know used to be at your address, surely you would tell the postman and send it back? Secondly opening mail addressed to someone else is an offence, and thirdly, if this had been happening for over a year why would you still be opening that mail to send it back to the sender? And fourthly, they managed to get my first letter, so why not the second?
I’ve spoken to the Insolvency Register to find out that they are a Ltd company and are not insolvent, so far so good.
And so I’ve been trying to find out where this company is actually based. I looked up the company on companieshouse, and then contacted the south Cambridgeshire District council to try and find out what type of property is registered at the address “Ideal” gave us. Due to Data Protection regulations however, they couldn’t help me. So I contacted the Valuation Office Agency, who obviously couldn’t tell me who payed council tax on the property, but that the premises is registered as ‘Domestic’.
As an aside – Ideal Landscapes by Design Ltd is registered to the above address on CompaniesHouse.gov.uk. It is a legal requirement to keep these details up to date, and an offence not to inform the register that your details have changed. So one way or another, “Ideal” have broken the law.
Sadly, this is where my trail runs out, and Consumer Direct can help me no more.
Edit:
I guess I could turn to Anne Robinson..
I can’t even tell dear old Anne about it because the Watchdog “Your Story” form is broken. Typical.
Yes folks, it’s true, the great God Google is fallible. The only problem being that they have seriously broken the law this time.
What really irritates me is that Sergey Brin is merely exercising in damage limitation. This would have come out sooner, rather then later, if Google hadn’t taken the step to admit it publicly, and things would have been a lot worse for the bastardscompany.
They say they’ll now delete all the data they collected. Right, who’s going to watch them do it?
This kind of thing is illegal, and anyone else doing it would face massive fines and a criminal record, within the UK, but because it’s Google, I’m betting they’ll get away with it.
Call the Bible what you will, but some of it is a fascinating read; Revelations, chapter 20 especially. It just so happens that, in my opinion, the King James Version is best.
There are several worrying aspects to this soon-to-be-legislation that I could comment on. The fact that the Bill has been “washed-up” – parliament parlance for pushed through without proper consultation – is both dangerous and worrying to begin with: the fact that the government didn’t try to push this through earlier should ring alarm bells as to why they considered a period where proper consultation doesn’t take place (with parliament being dissolved) the necessary time to have it read.
The ever-unpopular Landline Tax has been shifted to the Finance Bill, so we are still paying. Powers given to Ofcom are again dangerous and worrying, considering nationalisation of Nominet is a terrible, terrible idea.
I’m not going to go into much detail because I’ve exhausted my thoughts on this in several places, but what sickens me the most about the whole thing, is that 40 Members of Parliament turned up to vote on the second reading.
Forty people from our collective body who are supposed to represent us. I wrote to my MP, David Howarth, asking him why he felt it unimportant to be present at the second reading. A reply from my MP’s secretary (or whoever it is that actually replies to us mugs on these occasions) wrote a nice letter about how Mr Howarth MP opposed the DEB and had voted accordingly.
Well first off, I appreciate him voting against it, but secondly it didn’t answer my question. I wanted to know why my MP (and by proxy hopefully why so few MPs) considered it not important to be at the second reading. That is the failing in democracy for me: our politicians – our elected representatives – do not give a damn about what we actually want.
Whilst there is scant choice within the British political system, a few notes of Labour’s reign will hopefully convince people not to vote for them.
Here is a few of Labour’s achievements from their last few terms in government:
Not to forget the countless sound bites driven by a corrupted media team, a few choice ones being:
“No more boom and bust”
The biggest bust since the war, needs no further explanation.
“British jobs for British workers”
A hollow sound bite. Uncontrolled immigration taking up low paid unskilled work whilst the welfare system encourages people to stay on benefits.
“Education, Education, Education”
Record numbers of young not employed, in education or training. Spiralling student debt, top-up fees and low job prospects.
“Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”
Prisoners sentences cut short due to a lack of prison places. PCSO plastic police and police investigation little more than handing out a crime reference number for insurance purposes. The re-offending rate among young prisoners is close to 90%.
“Best placed internationally to weather the economic storm”
One of the first in and last out of the deepest recession since the war whilst increasing our debt significantly in the process.
We don’t have any great alternatives, but none of the parties in opposition can be worse then this travesty of a government.
I’ve often been told that I’m an old man trapped in a young man’s body. This is mostly true, except for the young man’s body bit as that is getting increasingly age weary..
Anyway. Having lived, studied, worked and socialised in Cambridge for several years now I would like to think I have something of an understanding of etiquette. In particular, the good old fashioned waistcoat. Why we don’t really wear these any more I’m not sure, and the Edwardian in me somewhat laments the loss of this garment of clothing.
Worse however is, I find, the lack of proper waistcoats seemingly anywhere, but worse – in the hive of evening wear etiquette and culture that is Cambridge. Black-tie is formal wear of a seemingly failing age. No one I’ve spoken to seems to know the proper etiquette of Black-tie wear. Cummerbunds are all well and good for friendly formal dinners, but for the most formal of occasions they simply are not done. The correct dress is a waistcoat. Wide open in a sort of u-shape to three, or four if you are feeling sufficiently flamboyant, buttons; to allow the shirt to be properly seen.
The only waistcoats available in Cambridge are morning waistcoats, high-breasted, oft-six buttoned garments which in many cases where lovely items, but not for formal dinner wear. Extensive searching found what I was after on-line, but given the cost I’d much rather just get one tailored.
Of all places, I had expected Cambridge to maintain an observation of proper etiquette, but as most suit shops there now seem to stock American style tuxedos, I suppose I have to concede that perhaps I was born about a hundred years too late.
This man is a hero in every sense of the word. Worth 5 minutes of your time.
I would like to have the right to die on my lawn with a glass of brandy and Thomas Tallis on my ipod.
Sir Terry Pratchett on the news this morning, regarding his desire for a tribunal to be set up to review “right to die” cases. Such a beautiful little sentiment that it brought a tear to my eye.
I shall from Monday be trying to cut caffeine out of my diet.
I shan’t imagine I’ll be successful, but here goes.
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