World-class service?

I said some weeks ago that I was going to start complaining about stuff and I started in earnest last week, with two complaints. One to the local council about them not paying for plastic recycling, and the other to the BBC about the lack of digital terrestrial in the area. I thought I would post the correspondence so far as part of my blog, so the rest of the world can see that whilst the BBC might have an enviable reputation across the globe for its high quality programmes, some aspects of the technical system are a bit crap to say the least, as is the case with much of British infrastructure!


To the BBC 23 January 2007

Can you explain to me why we are continually badgered to 'go digital' when our area is not scheduled to 'go digital' until September 2011?

We cannot get freeview reception in our area, so will have to fork out for s sky box and dish if we wish to view digital programmes. And yet, the technical quality of the programmes we can get seems to be continually getting poorer with a plethora of ‘digital’ glitches evident on a daily basis. I would love someone at the BBC to explain this to me as I am sick of those stupid adverts saying it's easy to 'do digital' Spare us!

From the BBC 23 Jan 07

Dear Ms C

Thank you for your e-mail.

The BBC recognises some sections of our audience do not currently have the opportunity to get digital television through their aerial.

The digital promotional trails are to inform the public of what digital services are provided by the BBC and to help them prepare for the eventual switchover. We cannot currently expand digital terrestrial television further as this would cause interference to existing analogue services. Once the analogue television service has been switched off, we will have enough frequencies available to extend the digital television signals to those areas still to receive it.

We do appreciate you taking the time to make us aware of your views on the use of our digital trails and rest assured your comments have been fully registered on our audience log which is made available to senior BBC management.

Thank you again for contacting the BBC.

Regards
Tony Brown
BBC Information


To the BBC 28 Jan 07
Thank you for your prompt response to my query. I would like to respond in turn with a number of further queries and comments:

Firstly, Since I received your e-mail, I have been discussing the subject with friends in the area, and we all agree that, given the fact that we will not have a full digital terrestrial service until the analogue signal is switched off, it is grossly unfair that we pay the same license fee as people who receive a great deal more channels than we do. I can only receive 4 channels with a decent signal. When I first moved here eight and a half years ago, I could get a not-too-bad picture on channel 5 from the TV set upstairs which has its own booster aerial, but this has since waned rendering channel 5 unwatchable. Is there no possibility of at least improving the reception for terrestrial while we wait for ‘the big switch on’ (sic)?

Secondly, I recently discovered that we taxpayers subsides the commercial terrestrial channels - this came as big shock to me as I thought the revenue came from advertising, and I am appalled that this is case and I reckon not many people know about it.

Thirdly, I must say that I believe that the BBC does make some excellent programmes and some of the high quality programmes – particularly nature documentaries and costume dramas - obviously have a world-wide appeal. Given the ,money-making potential of these programmes, why are we paying a license fee at all?


I would appreciate your time in responding to these comments.

Regards

Storm in a teacup

Phil now has about 22 tunes, some of them dancey breakbeats and some of them ambient-type electronic music. I think he has decided to compile a dance album first as he has a better chance of finding outlets for it. He has been working almost all his spare time on his music recently, and it’s obviously paying off in terms of number of tunes he’s created.

Mind you, we were a bit distracted from our usual activities towards the end of last week, as we were affected by the bad storms on Thursday. I left work early amid warnings of traffic chaos and got back (freakily easily!) to find we had lost a window in the bedroom. A pane of glass had totally blown out. It has took some effort to find someone to say they can fix it, but typically, they haven’t called yet to give us a day they can come. The most upsetting aspect of the episode has been the loss of the glass fish, but honestly it could’ve been much worse. We were really lucky the window blew out and not in, for a start, or the bed would have been covered by broken glass. And seeing the pictures on the news of gable ends falling onto cars and walls collapsing and killing children, it’s just an annoyance more than anything really.

New Year Revolution

I have had a weird few weeks.. the run up to Christmas was pretty good, then Christmas and New Year were okay – we had almost 2 weeks off and did loads of pottering and dossing about. Had a few trips out of the house – the usual bit of shopping, drinking, country walking (when we got absolutely drenched). Felt very relaxed when we went back to work on the 3rd January, and then, only 3 days later, I get struck by the lurgy and spent the best part of a week in bed. And then, just as I get over that, I am afflicted with stomach cramps so I have had a very uneventful weekend, and feel guilty about not doing very much. Mind you, it’s always a waste of time making new year resolutions because you never stick to them do you?

One thing I have decided though is I really need to get back into doing some creative stuff again. Phil has been making loads of music recently and reckons he has enough for about 2 albums. How and where he’s going to publish them, I don’t know yet. I suggested the internet but he doesn’t think it’s the kind of commercial stuff people will hook into. Well, okay, some of it could be perceived as a bit on the geeky side, but that’s what he does and he’s really good at it. So he should get it out there and let the people decide, that’s what I say.

I have offered to design some album covers but he needs to come up with titles first so I know what kind of collages to do. I used to do a lot of that type of thing and haven’t for ages so this will be a good incentive to get back into it. I also need to start writing my fiction again. I know everyone wants to be an author, but with me it has been an ambition since I was really young and it is hard to come with a good excuse as to why I haven’t got anywhere with it yet. Sure, I’ve written loads of short stories (some of which I have lost) and started a couple of books, but there is very little to demonstrate my talents as yet and I really must rectify that in the near future. I have to stop letting other stuff get in the way and just do it!