This has been the experience of a lifetime.  NY is everything I imagined it would be.

Full set of NY pix here.

Dr. S.

Full set of NY pix here.

Dr. S.

Full set of NY pix here.

Dr. S.

Oh, and we had a fire alert at the Roosevelt Hotel – this was clearly an assassination attempt on my life but fortunately I had contacts in the FDNY.

Full set of NY pix here.

Dr. S.

I won’t be going into massive detail in these postings as I’m on holiday, but here are some photographic highlights of my travels so far.  Tonight, we took a trip up the Empire State Building!  Built by the Daleks of course, it was bloody cold on the south side of the tower!

And ?i had my first NY hotdog!

Full set of NY pix here.

Dr. S.

Leaving me a card is less than useless.  It’s certainly not the item I ordered – I’m sure I would have remembered placing an order for a white A5 card with yellow writing on it.  But I don’t.  Because I didn’t.

Anyway, on the basis that you cannot now supply me the item by Monday, when I needed it, I wish to cancel my order.

Honestly – what is the point?

Or is it me?  Do you assume that no-one else works and that I am sat at home patiently waiting for items to be delivered by jobsworth companies who fail to notice the massive green box by my front door that is clearly labelled “parcels”?  Maybe no-one else is working?  Perhaps I am the only person left with a job in this country and it’s actually MY fault for going out to earn a crust and not being home to sign for my package?  I must investigate this to see how everyone else is getting away with it…  Although…it does make me wonder who all the thousands of people I pass driving on the M3 every morning actually are – presumably they are all off to the Job Centres in their shiny brand new BMWs and Audis?  Because they can’t be working – or you might actually have an idea of how to deal with the general public and arrange delivery with a firm that actually delivers instead of leaving pieces of white card hanging uselessly from my door.

My wife and I received a call today from your company and I therefore wish to make a formal complaint.

My telephone number has been registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) for ten years now, and I should not be receiving marketing calls.

Yours is not the first PPI Company to ring me and, frankly, I am becoming increasingly frustrated that my wishes not to be contacted are being ignored in such a wilful fashion.

I have this evening rung your offices to complain and spoken to Adrian, a Section Manager within your organisation, who informs me that the information containing my number was provided to you by the “Consumer Lifestyle Survey”.

I must therefore demand the following information:

1)    Full details of the “Consumer Lifestyle Survey” including a contact address, telephone number and the details of someone in a senior position there with whom I may raise a further complaint.

2)    Details of why my details were provided to you by the “Consumer Lifestyle Survey” when I am registered with the TPS.

3)    Details as to why there has been a clear and systematic failure within your organisation to check that my details were registered with the TPS.

4)    Failing number (3) above, full details as to why I was contacted in any event, having established that I was registered with the TPS.

Your employee Adrian was able to agree with me that there has been a demonstrable failure on your part to check my TPS registration, and on this basis I trust you will comply with my request.

I must also insist on a written apology for contacting me in this manner and written assurance that all such future contact will cease.

Furthermore, I require that, aside from the above response, which I expect and must insist that I receive, in writing, within five (5) working days of the date of this letter, my details are removed from your computers and/or any other data retrieval systems which are used by your organisation forthwith.

Please note that this is a formal instruction in accordance with the Data Protection Act (1998) and compliance on your part is mandatory.

If necessary, I will follow up this letter with a Subject Access Request to ensure that you have complied with my instructions.

Finally, and for the record, I must insist that your organisation, or anyone affiliated with your organisation desists from calling or contacting me at any point in the future.  Failure to adhere to this request will result in the following courses of action:

i)             I will make a report to the Police for harassment.

ii)            I will instigate immediate legal proceedings.

iii)           I will register a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner in light of your failure to adhere to my instructions as outlined above.

I also reserve the right to issue legal proceedings in the event that you decline to provide the information I have requested in this letter.

I fully intend to track down and bring to account all organisations or individuals who have thus far, or who continue to harass me in this manner, through the Courts if necessary.

I look forward to hearing from you.

CC:  Telephone Preference Service (TPS), DMA House, 70 Margaret Street, London, W1W 8SS.

I am sitting here, on a Sunday afternoon with a half-cooked dinner, that we can’t finish off, or eat, because once again your product has let us down.  This is totally unacceptable.  I’ve wasted money on the food, and my family now have to go hungry.  We are going to have to order food in, at yet further cost.  You’ve also tripped all the electrics in my house, so now I have to spend half an hour resetting all my clocks.  I don’t suppose you took that into account either when you designed a cooker with a heating element that routinely burns through?

To make matters worse, the engineer cannot come out until a week on Monday, the 21st, to replace the element for the third time, leaving me without cooking facilities for 8 days, and forcing my family to go out for dinner, at yet further expense, next week.

I am NOT HAPPY and I will use every tool at my hands, including Twitter, Facebook, BBC Watchdog, and any other form of social media at my hands until I get satisfaction from you.  I’ll even write to my MP if that’s what it takes.  And no, replacing my heating element is not the answer, I am going to have to insist on monetary reimbursement for my spoiled food, additional costs and if necessary a replacement cooker.  I don’t care if it’s out of warranty, EU regulations state that a device must be fit for purpose.  I think I can demonstrably prove that your machine is not.

Alas, I cannot provide you with a model number, as you’ve failed to put it on the front of the machine, I’ve no idea why, but I can provide a photo and the device is available for inspection.  I expect a reply by immediate return, failing which I will have to consider legal proceedings.

Dr. S.

I’ve got lots more Daleks, including a whole box of Dapol ones from the late 1980′s, but these are preferred.

Dr. S.

Full pix here.

Dr. S.

The Longleat event was most certainly official, since my ticket, that I am looking at right now, quote clearly has emblazoned upon it the words “BBC Enterprises”.  Please correct your page immediately.

Dr. S.

The Producer of last week’s Douglas Adams Party (and Douglas’s brother) has asked if he can use some of my photos on the official website. And here they are.

Dirk Maggs, the Director of the show has asked for copies of my photos for his own use, and for forwarding to Save the Rhino.

The Editor of ZZ9 magazine (HH fanzine) has asked for my photos and they are appearing in a double-page spread in the next issue.

And friends online are asking me for copies.

So…I think it’s safe to say that they’ve gone down rather well!  Stick that in your pipe, Basingstoke Camera Club.

I must say, this is all very nice indeed, given that as I left the event itself, I saw a big poster on the wall of the Apollo saying, in no uncertain terms, that there was to be “no photography”.

Oops.

Oh well, I figured the opening announcement saying “no flash photography” gave me sort of permission to take pictures without a flash, which was what I proceeded to do.  And no burly security guards attempted to throw me out during my less than clandestine, huge telephoto zoom lens misadventures.

It’s things of this nature that give me encouragement for the life of crime, misdemeanour and world domination that I have embarked upon.  Today…failing to see a “no photos” poster.  Tomorrow – Basingstoke!  The day after that – the world!

Dr. S.