It makes them go weird
Last reason to leave Orange
Tomorrow is Orange Wednesday aka The Day I Leave Orange Forever. Here, though, is my final reason for leaving Orange.
Remember how Ernst & Young seemed to be taking their time getting back to me? Turns out they called back almost instantly and left me a voicemail on my mobile phone. That was on the 6th July. Orange finally got round to telling me I had a voicemail – on Friday. That means it took a grand total of 15 days for Orange to let me know I had a voicemail.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is yet another reason why I’m leaving Orange.
Premature language class conclusion
Spoke too soon. Looks like we’re both doing Italian now.
Language class problem solved
We’ve worked out which language class to go to. Sarah’s going to go to French level 3, I’m going to go on Spanish level 1. That way Sarah will be able to get her French up to the level of fluency she’d like, I can get my Spanish up to the same level as Sarah’s and next year, we’ll be able to do Spanish level 2 together.
For some reason, Italian just doesn’t appeal. German was on the wrong day and the others had a ceiling that was too low. Plus this way we don’t get too competitive too early.
Don’t buy a Sony camera: if it ever goes wrong, you’ll regret it
I’ve mentioned my ailing PowerBook and the ever-vexing question of whether I should get a new one or not. Here’s another one for you: if your camera is slightly broken, when should you get a new one?
We have a Sony DSC-P200. It is/was very nice indeed. Then we dropped it, trying to take a picture of ourselves. The zoom lens was out so now the camera doesn’t zoom anymore. Its focusing capabilities are now in the range of “no focus at all” to “very, very nearly in focus”.
We’d like to get it repaired. But here’s the thing. The camera cost about £200. We rang Sony and asked how much it would cost to get it repaired. £112 (or something very close) just to have it looked at, with the possibility of more costs if parts need replacing. So basically the entire cost of the camera then?
“But aren’t there other people who could repair it?” you might ask. No. I rang a camera repair shop to ask that very same question.
“Ah. It’s a Sony is it? That’s going to be a problem. They won’t sell us the spare parts.”
So only Sony can repair your camera if it goes wrong and it’ll cost at least half the price of the camera to get it replaced.
I’m thinking it’s time to buy a Fuji Finepix F30. Anyone had any experience with one of those? The ISO3200 feature looks very inviting…
Oh dear. Here come the script kiddies
Sometimes you can feel so naive and trusting.
I spent a happy couple of hours removing spam files from my web server last night. I hadn’t realised they were spam. I hadn’t been compromised myself. There was no sign they were there without a good look at the file system. But thanks to the rubbishness of my host, Dataflame, I found out about them and took them away.
Free iPod language software
Cool Gorilla are doing some free language packs for iPods, including German, French, Greek and Spanish. Get ’em while they’re hot!
Virgin: not so helpful but friendlier
There’s something about Virgin Mobile call centre staff. You just can’t be nasty to them. It’d be like killing Bambi. You just can’t do it.
As you may know, I’m in the process of moving from Orange to Virgin Mobile, a process that is taking way, way longer than it should. Since I’ve now got a PAC code from Orange, migrating my phone number to Virgin Mobile is now a Virgin problem, rather than an Orange problem.
Trouble is, Virgin aren’t proving terrible efficient. There was that trouble with setting up my direct debit for starters. Although I mentioned in that last entry that I’d set up my direct debit, what I should have said was “I asked Virgin to set up the direct debit for me”.
You see, two days after getting my new PAC code, I rang to give it to Virgin. The trouble was that direct debit hadn’t gone through, so they couldn’t start the migration. The fluffy person who took my call promised, just promised that as soon as it was authorised, she’d text me (on my Orange number) to let me know and that she’d start the migration as well, texting me the date of the migration at the same time. She was on duty till 11pm that evening, so she really would, honest.
Except I didn’t get a text. A day later I tried my Virgin SIM card and there was a text waiting for me there, to tell me the paperwork had all gone through. No migration date though.
So I called the next day. Oh yes, the fluffy man at the other end said. She’ll text you when it goes through. She’ll do it for sure. That was Friday.
Today, textless on both SIMs, I called Virgin again. Fluffy new lady spent six minutes going through my account before revealing that the port hadn’t been authorised because of the direct debit screw up. She’d put it through now and I’d be getting ported on the 26th.
That’s 16 days and five phone calls to do something that should take seven days and one phone call at best. And yet, they’re so fluffy at Virgin, I just don’t have in my heart to complain. At least I’m on my way at last.
The one redeeming thing is that Orange’s rubbishness means that I still haven’t had my account disabled, so I can still use my old number for now.
Thanks heavens for small Orange mercies.
The lowdown from BDO
Just spoken to Chris Coles, a nice man at BDO Stoy Hayward. As discussed yesterday, Ernst & Young are hoping to get BDO to hand out the contents of the so-called “ring-fenced fund” to those freelances who did work between 12th December and 19th January for Highbury.
E&Y appointed BDO on the 10th July, but with court taking holidays over summer, it’s likely to be September before BDO can be officially appointed as a joint trustee of the fund. BDO will then go through all the purchase orders approved by Highbury, together with the invoices they have, to see who’s owed what.
At the moment, it looks like the fund actually has a “small surplus” of cash, although that’s contingent on various estimates, etc, so the fund might realistically only be able to pay out a percentage of owed monies to creditors. Coles hopes that he’ll have everything done and dusted as soon as possible and hopefully by the end of the year though.
BDO is working on a letter, currently with the lawyers, that they’ll send everyone in the next week or so, advising them of what’s happening. If you don’t get one, you should probably give BDO a call to make sure they’ve got your current details. I’ll let you know if/when I get mine, just so you know whether to panic or not.
Ernst & Young reply
Progress at last. Just spoken with Simon Yeadell of Ernst & Young. He says that E&Y have just appointed a group of accountants EDO Storey-Hayward (can’t seem to find them on a Google search so I probably misheard the name, but it’s something similar). They’re going to look after the “credit trust” (the new name for the so-called ring-fenced fund) and decide who gets paid from it.
Yeadell’s given me a phone number for someone at EDO S-H so I’ll give them a call tomorrow. But his expectation is that the company would be writing letters to all concerned very soon to let them know what’s happening.
UPDATED: The correct name of the company is BDO Stoy Hayward. Thanks to Scott for the enlightenment.