The now familiar blank screen which has replaced all programming formerly delivered by NTL. Back in early March I though it was only Sky I had lost, now it seems to be everything. 

I will be visited by a technician on Monday morning but have been warned that if there is no one at home I will be charged £10. I think, well, I've been without a service for a week, don't you think it should be quits?

I still recall those smug comments I read on blogs and forums after the takeover and the lack of Sky programmes, about what a clever chap Richard Branson was, how he was sticking up for the little guys, and surely Virgin had something unbelievable up their pop sleeves. Is this it? A blank screen and a change to telephone charging, no longer billed by the second, you are now billed by the minute - rounded up. If you make a call lasting two minutes one second you will be charged for three minutes. Well done for sticking up for the little guy.

And by the way - can we please stick a zip on Uma Thurman. She is quickly becoming one of the most annoying people in the world as these irritating Virgin ads are replayed and replayed and replayed............

Despite leaving my contact number with British Gas with a request to call me back once they had investigated what may have occurred I instead receive a letter this morning from Revenue Assurance, their debt collection agency. I am not really surprised, in fact, when I first spoke about this in May I ended the blog with "To be continued....".

The debt collection agency are looking to recover a debt of £743.67 from a dormant company which has never traded and which doesn't even have a bank account. The company was incorporated in July of last year which is clear to anyone who looks up the records at Companies House.

The billing period for the amount they are trying to recover is from November 2004 to October 2006. If the company was incorporated late July of 2006 how on earth could it have been using a gas supply at an office in Cambridge since November 2004?

The annoying thing about the letter I receive is that it doesn't have a contact name. It's signed off  "Recoveries Team", above which is stamped, some standard signature which gives an initial rather than a name. In fact, it appears to signed by an A Frankenstein.

I call the number on the letter and after I quote the account number am told the person I need to speak to is on the phone. I leave my details. Now I am beginning to fume. 

A quick Google on British Gas Billing and the results returned include headlines such as, British Gas swamped by billing complaints, My British Gas nightmare: Customer Service Hell, British Gas: awful on every level, British Gas sets complaints record, Surge in British Gas Complaints, British Gas Complaints Soar, Billing Chaos at British Gas seemingly ad infinitum.

In fact, the Times, this morning, breaks another story reporting that back in February British Gas cancelled the direct debits of  45,000 of its customers, just weeks after Phil Bentley, MD of British Gas, promised to cut complaints caused by a new £400 million billing system. 

Photo: British Gas gets a £400 million makeover.

To be continued ......

I read recently in The Long Tail that the supermarket contributed to the downfall of communism. The supermarket "showcased how a free market economy could deliver abundant, affordable food and became a metaphor for what capitalism could do and Communism could not". Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the Russian Federation recalled in his autobiography, recounting a visit to a supermarket in 1989, "When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons, and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people."

Luckily it wasn't Tesco he visited. The empty shelves, damaged produce and long checkout queues might have given him an entirely different vision of the economy.

Photo: Vision of the future or simply a queue arising from a lack of checkout staff or is it confused souls waiting for food to be moved from cages to the shelves.....

Mattesons Fridge Raiders are a self styled "bag of meat" snack which claims to be "an ideal healthier snacking alternative to crisps". Made with 100% chicken...actually it's made with 91% chicken, but that 91% is 100% chicken....

Having been saturated with the TV advert I stopped in front of them in Tesco only to be perplexed as to why there is a bag of chicken which  tastes like Chinese spare ribs. Are Mattesson set to expand the range into the rest of the crisp flavours so that we can eat chicken that tastes like beef or prawn or bacon?

What happened to eating an apple or dunking a digestive?

Government insist there is no risk from Wi-Fi radiation

Read what other bloggers are saying....

• BookDrunk
• NextLust
• ChrisBlogger
• ParentDish
• Technovia
• Computing
• Digamy

The 2012 Olympic logo was unveiled today with Seb Coe, the 2012 Organising Committee Chairman, admitting "It won't be to everyone's taste". Words like "jagged", "jigsaw" and other unprintable words are already being used to describe the "zany" design which had a price tag of £400,000. 

Of course, because of the price tag, the new logo is officially a brand set to "take(s) our values to the world beyond our shores". Ken Livingston, praising the angular and disjointed design, says it "draws on what London has become".

Seb Coe further describes the logo as "an invitation to take part and be involved". More than 12,500 people already have by signing a petition to have it scrapped.

Some have also remarked the logo might be derived from the Nazi Storm Troopers insignia, perhaps recalling and being influenced by Ken Livingston's jibes at an Evening Standard journalist last year?

It's also been suggested the logo represents a sordid sex act too rude to show on the internet.

Take note, all countries with a bad human rights record, just recognise the legislation and then opt out of the parts you don't like.

The New Head Quarters of Spectre are set to open on the 27th June.

Cherie Blair photographed while wearing a beard of bees

Pictured at the weekend, enjoying their shared leisure interest, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown attend a Star Trek Convention.

Last week I was in Portsmouth and got stuck behind a waiting car on one of the one ways leading to Albert Road. I sat patiently, behind the "old dear", who didn't acknowledge me or that I was waiting behind her. After about five minutes another "old dear" closes the front door of her house and eventually gets into the car. She did glance my way -  disapprovingly - but again, didn't acknowledge my waiting. The pair drove off without as much as a wave of the hand...........

.....as if I had nothing better to do......

Prime Minister Tony Blair prepares for his final day where he is set to exit Number 10 in spectacular style.

I tuned in briefly only to witness twelve people all talking at the same time. The spine says it best

Big Brother Returns to Channel 4