Inevitably, my new best friend, Michael, the Virgin Media engineer didn’t return on Friday afternoon to complete the installation of V+ or to reinstate my original, functional set top box to provide me with a TV service over the weekend. Instead, he hurriedly telephoned me to say he had transferred this issue to the ’networks team’ who would call me later to resolve it. Surprise, surprise, the ’networks team’ didn’t call me to resolve it so I had to call them (on three separate occasions) to make another appointment. ...

This afternoon, a Virgin Media engineer has arrived to ‘upgrade ’ my existing set top box to a V+ (TV drive). This is a straightforward box swap. No additional wiring or drilling is required. However, the new box failed to initialise. We both stared expectantly at the following screen for an eternity: Card Status: No T-Stream IPPV Status: BLANK He then called technical services who initiated the operation. He double checked the serial numbers of the V+ box and the card. He tried to bamboozle me with science ‘Hits must be slow today’. ...

Generally, the quality of cover versions on YouTube can vary to say the least. However, covers that purely mime to the original soundtrack are excellent as you can simply minimise the video and listen to decent music, you were forced to remove to make way for another yet another virtual machine. This cover version of ‘Aneurysm’ by Nirvana has a certain visual appeal though - the drums and cymbal, the bendy guitar and the socks. ...

Ladies and gentlemen. Please be upstanding and don your ear protectors for this unique version of ‘God Save The Queen’.

I’m not sure I’m cut out for a career in pre-sales as I have an irritating tendency to blush and my left eye twitches horribly when I tell half-truths. However, on Sunday afternoon, in order to welcome my loved ones back from Holland, I donned a smart dark suit with a crisp white shirt and business-like grey tie. I then loitered around the lower level of Heathrow Terminal 1. I chose to invest the money I saved on the standard taxi fare in a very stylish (and not stupid looking) Bluetooth headset offering hands free operation. ...

‘Holy Father. It is almost 31 years since City’s last trophy. Since then, I have: Failed to install Oracle 10gR3 Grid Control to experiment with the Siebel Management Pack. Failed to configure bridged networking on my Siebel 8.0/Oracle 10g/RedHat VMware environment. Consequently, I have just deleted the complete 20GB environment in a fit of pique. Nearly exploded at the woeful response to a ticket with Bluehost asking why two functioning cron jobs were a) removed and b) failed to work when reinstated. Failed to resolve a trivial but incredibly annoying problem with AVG mail filter. To top it all, I don’t even know the difference between MB and Mbps. ‘My dear son. You are indeed a worthless sinner. May the Lord may mercy on your soul. To seek forgiveness and redemption, please say three Hail Marys, one Our Father and request a transfer to pre-sales.’ ...

As part of the ongoing vinyl replacement program, I finally bought ‘Unknown Pleasures’, ‘Closer’ and ‘Still’ today. 25 years on - ‘New Dawn Fades’, ‘She’s Lost Control’ et al still sound absolutely fantastic.

What could possibly be better than a romantic city break in Amsterdam with your loved one in the glorious spring sunshine ? That would be lovely but, unfortunately, Norma has chosen to take her loved one, Norma- Jean to Holland to indulge in culture, canals, Anne Frank, trampolining, tulips and space-cake. Never mind. What could possibly be better than a lazy weekend dedicated to father-son bonding ? A chance to catch up in the beer garden on all the events of the week at work and school respectively. A chance to hire ‘Borat’ on DVD and laugh helplessly. ...

Two questions of earth shattering importance ‘Kingsbridge, Devon - where on earth is that - Somerset ?’ ‘Look, Norman. There’s something wrong with this darned phone again. Why is everyone continually engaged; my mum, my sister, Phyllis and now Doreen ?’ Answers: Kingsbridge is in Devon. There is nothing wrong with the telephone. Your mother, sister and close friends have a tendency to spend an inordinate length of time on the phone.

I am currently trying to assist with a couple of long standing Service Requests. This type of work is interesting because the issue is normally pretty deep rooted and complicated. These escalations are also very challenging because lots of very intelligent people have already spent a lot of man-hours investigating the problem. Anyway, one of the first steps is to review associated Service Requests and try to determine whether they are indeed related to the issue under investigation. ...