VIRGIN MAFIA - A Tale of Media Piracy

 

A Tale of Media Piracy

 Over the past three years, since my wife went into a nursing home, I had tried unsuccessfully to change the name on the Virgin Media contract from that of my wife to my own. After my wife passed away two days before Christmas Day, I contacted the bereavement team at Virgin Mafia, on 8^th January, who changed the name on the account on the understanding that the contract which was valid until August 2026 would remain in place. On that contract I was paying £59.39 per month.

I was somewhat surprised when through the postal service I received, on 8 January, a new contract to sign agreeing to pay £71+ per month. I refused to sign this contract and returned it explaining the reasons in the Business Reply Envelope supplied. On going into the Virgin Media website on on more than 4 0ccasions in the immediate aftermath, the multiple visits because I couldn’t believe my eyes on the initial occasion, I was informed in the most definite manner that my contract had ended. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact  a real human being at the media company, I sought an alternative supplier for my broadband needs. Rise Fibre agreed to supply a faster Fibre broadband router at a cost, initially, of £17.99 per month, no installation fee. A technician will install the new router next Wednesday, 21^st January.

This morning I received an email from Virgin Mafia informing me that, as I was thinking of switching to Rise, I should be aware that as I was still in contract with VM (sice when?) I would be liable to pay an early disconnection fee. In light of what has been happening over the past several days, proving quite injurious to the health of this octogenarian, I have no understanding of the magic by which they’ve found me to be in contract.

Are Virgin Media Bad for One's Health

 Feeling, angry, nauseous and bewildered owing to Virgin Media.

A recently bereaved octogenarian with health problems., I need a phone and broadband to get my medication, contacting carers etcetera but at present I’ve had to cancel my Direct Debit with VM as I was getting nowhere – they’ve tried before to fuck me up but this time they’re succeeding!

I can’t really decide whether Virgin Media are incompetent or dishonest. On the 08^th January this year,  after many attempts to make contact with a Human at Virgin |Media, I finally managed to change the name on my VM contract to mine, which I had been trying to do for the past three years since my wife went into a nursing home. On the 8^th January I was able to contact the bereavement team who  made the necessary change and informed me that I would remain on that contract, on which I paid £59.39 for broadband 125 and a telephone landline (now digital)

Today, through the mail I was asked to sign a new contract, the final digit of the original contract number having been altered from 1 to 2, and asking me to sign and return it. My wife passed away on 23 December 2025 and on 8 January 2026 I changed the name on my account from that of my wife to mine via your bereavement line. The contract does not expire unti August. The cost of the package is £59.39 per month.. Today you have mailed me a new contract saying my monthly charge will be £71.66 increasing to £75.66 in April. I REFUSE to sign this new contract. I wish they could either GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER or try being honest and replacing detatched robotic voices on the telephone with real human contacts for a change.

My wife passed away on 23 December 2025 and around 8 January 2026 I changed the name on my account from that of my wife to mine via your bereavement line. The contract does not expired unti August. The cost of the package is £59.39 per month.. Today you have mailed me a new contract saying my monthly charge will be £71.66 increasing to £75.66 in April. I refuse to sign this new contract. Please get your act together."

Are Pharmacies usually inept?

 

Since last Friday, owing to the dilatoriness of my local #DayLewisPharmacy, I have been without my usual anxiolitics and twice per day beta blockers which were on a prescription I ordered from my GP on 20 August. From tomorrow morning I will be without my twice per day blood thinners. The pharmacy never answers phone calls and, yesterday I had to wait, discomfortedly, for over 30 minutes, in a queue to speak to the sole person at the desk in the pharmacy who thought the items would be received by them and delivered to me today. It is now 16.00 hours and they have not yet materialised. Today I have been quite light-headed and more unsteady on my feet than usual so, it came as no surprise that my blood pressure was riding extremely high. Can pharmacies be struck off for ineptitude, if so I have a nominee.

A FRAGMENT REDISCOVERED

 

Genuine NHS Dentist?

 

Genuine NHS Dentist

 

I’m just wondering if there is such a thing, in Harrogate, as a Dentist offering a real service for NHS clients.

 

Having been with my current practice since the 1990’s the situation is that I had a routine inspection on 11 July this year when the dentist found I needed three fillings, in some cases repairs to previously filled teeth. The earliest appointment they could offer was 11 October. Exactly three months on from the examination. Two months after this appointment was made I received a phone call, from the dental practice, informing me that, as the dentist would be away ar the time my appointment was due, it would have to be rearranged for 10 December (five months after the inspection).

 

In the meantime I have experienced shards of enamel breaking from both front and back of one of the teeth that required attention. The practice who are supposedly proffering a dental service for me, at present , are North Park Dental Practice.

A transformative event

 

Just wish I could find a pre-emptive strategy for these sudden onset bouts of painful exhaustion, it’s not as if I can lay the blame on over exertion. I’d had a quite lazy restful day today, apart from an unduly early morning waking, from my fitful slumbers, as the hound expressed an urgent need to utilize the garden! I was able to get back into bed within ten minutes but, it seemed like an eternity before I was able to resume my slumbers. When I did finally emerge from the duvet realm there seemed little option other than a very restful day.

 

Around 18.30 hours, a painful tiredness enveloped me; it’s almost impossible to determine which came first, the weary tiredness or the pains in upper limbs and feet. A not unfamiliar gnawing discomfort from the armpits served to induce feelings of nausea and a few shouted expletives caught the snoozing hound quite unawares, although he did quite quickly proffer me his paw and snuggled up closer to me. The discomfort dissipated, of its own volition(?) as I listened to Sibelius ‘The Wood Nymph’, at the opening of tonight’s Prom broadcast on BBC4 before I was fully awakened by the vocal dexterity of soprano Anu Komsi in a newly commissioned piece, from Laura Poe, ‘Laulut maaseudulta’.  The soprano’s performance reminded me of the excitement I felt when I first discovered Cathy Berberian’s vocal gymnastics in the 1960s. A transformative moment.

Wreckage & relief

This is a post I hastily scribbled down, primarily for my own benefit, several days ago. Having just stumbled across it again I thought it was maybe worth sharing 

            Wreckage & Relief 

 Where to begin, where should I have started in trying to understand my current drought of both emotional and physical stamina. The easy bit is accepting that we are psychosomatic beings, it’s pretty obvious that when one is physically, and not infrequently painfully, well below par it inevitably has an impact upon one’s emotional/mental sense of wellbeing.

 I’ve returned to a pattern of restless discomfited nights far outweighing any restful ones. I am fortunate that my combination of amitriptyline and tramadol about an hour before bedtime, (the efficaciousness of which has been reverse demonstrated on those occasions when I have omitted this cocktail, either accidentally or purposefully), still serves to keep full-blown restless legs at bay.

 Discomfort in armpits, elbows, wrists, feet and knees seem to come and go in quite random fashion both nocturnally and diurnally. On another level, reading has become difficult (once again in random fashion) as I seem to lose concentration after just a few lines and futilely return to the beginning. Emotionally, tears are erupting with very minor prompts such as hearing of the death of one time friends and comrades, even though I’ve not been in contact with them for some time. Listening to music, frequently makes me think of, not too far distant, times when I’d have been enjoying the same music or song with my beloved Helen, who of necessity has had to reside in a nursing home since January of last year, following a few years of severe physical and mental health problems. Those recalls are invariably of a bittersweet nature, and I find myself having to reach for the box of tissues.

 Much of what I’m experiencing is reminiscent of when I succumbed to moderate ME, back in the noughties, which led to my premature retirement from any formal wage-labour! 

 The attempt to write down my current physical/emotional state of being has somehow driven the darkest clouds a little bit further away. 

 Malcolm Evison 08/03/24

Advent Reflections - Golgotha Days

This year I spent considerable time on Advent readings and meditations, for some reason I've always found time for Lent studies but have somewhat overlooked approprate studies for the Advent season. What with having spent most of the past year alone, my beloved OH having been in Nursing Home care since January 2023, and an even more disheartening situation in the 'Holy Land'these studies didnot come easy but somehow, my seasonal reflections became a poem which I am now sharing with you:

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Proffering Thanks

 The abominable abdominals, that have taunted and haunted my bodily frame since Saturday evening, have settled down to their more familiar state of dis-ease.  Concurrently, a combination of paracetamol, tramadol, and Piper's empathetic behaviour, helped me through a couple of bouts of nausea-inducing, expletive producing, painful discomfort in the upper limbs and armpits. For this relief I proffer thanks. Gratitude makes one feel better, something I far too frequently forget!

PIPER

Poppy Day Dilemmas

 As both a Christian and a Socialist, I always have problems with the celebration of militarism otherwise known as Poppy Day. Whether or not I would have had sufficient strength of character to stand by my pacifist principles in extreme circumstances is something that used to cause me considerable concern but, there are also other issues involved.

Much soul searching was involved, even when I had attempted to renounce my Xtian faith and, subsequently joined a revolutionary socialist organization. Don't get me wrong, I was already a socialist when I became a Christian, and failed to see the apparent necessity of taking on the petty bourgeois pretensions & morality that seemed to be the norm for evangelicals those days and saw communism, in an idealistic sense, as being far more compatible with Christianity than capitalism.

I moved freely between and amongst various groupings of the left, dismayed by much of the ideological bickering; I did manage however to retain friendships, in spite of (doctrinal) difficulties with members of factional groupings other than the one for which I settled.Too many of my comrades seemed to revel in the prospect of a good rumble, one could almost sense them salivating at the prospect of a bloody uprising. I consoled myself with the thought that bloodshed, like class warfare, is generally instigated by the capitalist ruling class and therefore resistance to their unjust power structures, which could only be maintained by the use of force, became a moral imperative.

But what of turning the other cheek; to be honest that may be the only option when confronted with the combined might of military and police, should the true wealth creators, the working class, attempt to fight for a truly just and democratic society where real equality of opportunity for everyone in a society focussed on care for one's neighbour. Bear in mind that I use neighbour in the broadest sense, that of the parable of the good Samaritan not the cynicism of "charity begins at home". To turn the other cheek is an expression of disdain for the values of those who rule by force. I did decide,however, that if I was able to shake off the shackles of my religious faith I would be happy to take up arms in the cause of a workers revolution. At the same time I recognized that there was no way I could take up arms for Queen and country, the capitalist cause. A complex dilemma indeed; the message and life of Jesus had so firmly grasped me that I still felt guilty at my readiness. albeit hypothetical, to take up arms for a revolutionary cause.

I fully appreciate the preparedness of young people, often from socially deprived areas of the nation, to join the armed forces in order to learn a trade and earn a living. Since the politically wilful destruction of our industrial base other job opportunities are greatly restricted. Nor do I doubt that many military personnel are serving in support of deeply held principles, whether understandably honourable or misguided is here irrelevant. For me a major scandal of the Poppy Appeal is that the welfare of those who have served their nation, and it's capitalist cause, should be dependent in any way upon charitable donations. It is the responsibility of the state that recruits, employs and puts the lives of these young men at risk,for whatever ideological motivation, to look after them.

I regret the loss of life of civilians and military personnel equally; I abhor the slaughter of innocents on the imperialist whim of any ruling elite. Should there come a Remembrance Day with no uniformed military personnel or insignia on display, at Cenotaphs and commemorative church services, I would no longer see the commemorations as show of support for militarism but, rather an acknowledgement of the futility of war.

 

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This post originally appeared on 10 November 2010