In the post Virgin have sent me a new, what I feel sure is inaccurately named, smart card. I follow the instructions which, predictably on step 3, fails and the television freezes. I wait the requisite 20 minutes and call the helpline. Listen to two messages that have absolutely nothing to do with me since I don't want HD channels or live in Warrington where the internet is down but where I'm assured there will be an update at six pm. It's now six thirty. I then press two, then three, then one, then two, two, two, two and hold. And hold. And hold.
Eventually I am connected to a call centre outside Glasgow where my accent twin takes me through all the things I've already done on her script, then resends a new signal, and after ten minutes of waiting for things to reboot, once again I now have 300 channels of rubbish on a television set I rarely switch on.
This sets me thinking. Why am I keeping all these services I don't use and so I ask to be transferred to someone who can help me tailor my package. More lengthy music, and a chap called Dan comes on the line who seems to be somewhere in the Midlands. His voice is a monotone. I explain that I want to cancel my V+ service that never once in the two years I've had it, has worked, my second telephone line which doesn't even have a phone plugged into it, and downgrade my channels to the minimum they offer.
He can do that. However it will cost me £44 per month while I'm currently paying £35. Apparently I get a discount on the package. That's ridiculous, I say. You're telling me that for a severely curtailed service it will cost me more money?
Yes.
Okay then I'll just cancel the whole thing.
I'm bluffing but I know they have to try to keep your business and I want to see if he'll come back with another offer.
You can't. You're not the account holder.
I am the account holder. Check your records. I have full authority to change and amend this account.
No, only the account holder can cancel.
We repeat this dialogue into about the twenty seventh circle of hell before I ask to speak to his supervisor.
I hang on for three songs, one of which is Pink and not a favourite. Not keen on Paolo Nuttini either.
He comes back and tells me that he's just spoken to his supervisor and been informed that the policy has changed and I can now cancel the account if I wish. No apology. No regret.
Are you now the supervisor?
No, I just spoke to her and she... The man is a tape machine.
I interrupt and remind him that I asked to speak to his supervisor and would still like to do so.
Another play of Paolo Nuttini (same one) and on comes a girl. Are you sure you want to cancel? She asks.
I repeat that nobody watches the television and so I really just want to simplify my package.
She tells me if I lose the second phone line and go from extra large to medium (ah if only), give up the Virgin Plus, it will cost five pounds less than I'm currently paying. Everything I asked for originally. We have a deal. But first she has to transfer me. Again.
If I have to listen to Paolo bleat once more I may wind the telephone wire round my neck and pull, except that it's a cordless.
Another man comes on the line. A bit further North - Yorkshire, mibbe (sic - I'm going for the accent here).
He's incredulous that I want to do without all these lovely extras for a mere saving of 'only' £5 a month.
I don't subscribe to HD despite the telly being ready. Hey, I'm ready for summer but it doesn't mean I'll ever wear a bikini. The V plus does not and has never worked. I repeat. And there's nothing I want to pause or record. Look at my telephone bills. I haven't used the line once in the last two years. I don't watch Kerang, or Bollywood Extra, or the Playboy Channel, or, in fact, anything. The remote hasn't had batteries in it for a week and nobody noticed. I just don't want a whole load of options that I don't need.
Grudgingly he switches me off.
I now have a mere 60 channels of crap (there is only a medium package, no small or extra small) and think longingly of those far off days when your only television worry was getting a damn picture at all by holding the aerial near a window, and Channel Four showed a train running down the tracks because it didn't have enough programs to broadcast full time.
It's now half past seven - more than an hour being passed round call centres. And then the oven pings. This is when it all really starts to go downhill.
