TalkTalk are still scamming people

Well if you thought our war against TalkTalk has ended, you are sadly mistaken. Upon checking my last bill with TalkTalk, I found that they applied an engineer charge of £50.00. This was done without my consent.

If you remember, TalkTalk was supposed to connect us to the internet in November, but failed to do so under terms of the contract. After persisting for a week they finally relented and agreed to send an engineer to connect us. In my calls to TalkTalk, they never once told me they would apply a call out charge - and why should they? They fucked it up first.

So I sent them a stern e-mail questioning this frankly illegal charge. Here is their condescending reply.

Thank you for contacting TalkTalk about your bill. 

I am very sorry to hear of your recent disappointment with our services. We assure you that customer satisfaction is our top priority, and we want our services to reflect that principle. I would like to apologise for any inconvenience this matter may have caused you.

I have checked your account and would like to confirm you that you have been charged £50.00 for the Engineer visit on 27th of November 2013. Engineer did not found any fault by attending the premises. Hence the charge is applicable to all the customers under the T&C acceptance.

I would love to give you the full refund of £50.00 but trust me I can't. As everything is not in our hand. I've checked your account and there are no notes to confirm that you've had a free Engineer visit at your property. So we are unable to credit you for the Engineer charge on your account.

Please, accept my sincere apologies.

Thanks for contacting TalkTalk. 

What a bunch of liars. An engineer came to fix a problem with TalkTalk after not connecting us for more than one week, and not once in my phone call with their customer service was I told that I had to pay if there were no faults found (which is frankly a lie, as we weren't connected for one week after we were supposed to go online).

When I called TalkTalk in October to move house, TalkTalk promised to reconnect me for free, and thus booked a free OpenReach engineer to come. This engineer failed to come and connect us. In fact, I still have a text by OpenReach claiming they didn't need to visit our property to connect us).

Now £50 is not much, but if TalkTalk thinks they can get away with secretly charging me £50, then who knows how many people they have scammed. I imagine they prey on elderly people who has no motivation to fight their dishonest predatory practice.

Our contract ends in November 2014 - that date can't come soon enough. In the meantime I urge you all not to sign up with them. They will do all they can to scam you. If you think Ofcom will put a stop on this practice you will be mistaken - these telecom companies have Ofcom in their pockets.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier mini-review

Yesterday I attended an advance screening of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, courtesy of Skype (thanks!). The screening was held at the Odeon Marble Arch and was shown in 3D, perhaps the only two negative things I can make about the evening (okay, three if you count the forgettable soundtrack). I visited that Odeon 14 years ago and it is still as bad as it was back then. As for 3D, well my hatred for the format is well documented. Moving on...

After a day to think about it, I can safely say that The Winter Soldier has elevated itself to perhaps my favourite movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a full rung above the Avengers. Which is pretty neat as the first Captain America movie was pretty meh. Coupled with the fact that the godawful Iron Man 3 and incredibly meh Thor 2 has me worried on whether MCU is a sustainable franchise. Good thing they got it with Captain America 2.

While CGI heavy in places, The Winter Soldier feels like a much more realistic movie thanks to some brilliant Bourne franchise-style fighting choreography and use of heavy artillery and proper weapons (lasers, who needs them?). Captain America has learned some new modern fighting movies and some of his take downs are pretty epic. I could watch Cap destroying that plane after escaping the Triskelion on repeat.

Newspaper: Let's slag people off for trying to be helpful

So Courtney Love read a plea asking for people to help find that missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane, and she does so, in her own best way. Cue slagging from people, as well as national newspapers, like the Guardian, who in a very Daily-Mail'ish post, not only mocked her for trying to help, but also her intelligence. Because she ain't no expert, innit (as if the writer was).

She was just trying to help, which is more than I can say for the mass media (who aren't experts as well) who has done nothing but speculate, and more importantly, impend the investigation, whilst taking advantage of a tragic event to generate clicks and advertising revenue.

If this isn't an example of gross sexism I do not know what is.

Browns of Brockley review

I have a confession. When I was first introduced to Brockley, the area we now live in, it was through the wonder of London's specialty coffee scene. Brockley is an odd place to visit for coffee, but it was how it was. In any case, our chance visit to this part of Lewisham opened our eyes to its lovely Victorian housing stock, many of which were largely ignored, but so many potential. The rest was history.

Browns is located conventionality in a row of terrace opposite Brockley railway station, making it an ideal spot to hang out in the wee morning when a train breaks down somewhere down the line. The shop is small and unassuming from the outside, and neutral and unpretentious on the inside. Delicious cakes and bagels greet you as you enter the shop. Oh, and the sweet smell of good coffee.

Get your own sign in London Underground Johnston

Hibernacula is a pop up art gallery featuring photographs, prints, poetry and fine art by some of East London finest artists. You can find them at an old office beside Leytonstone London Underground station. One of the artist who is exhibiting there is Russell Frost of Hooksmith Press. Originally from New Zeland, Russell has a small selection of his Letterpress prints on display as well as a working vintage letter press and London Underground's famous Johnston typeface press blocks. Up till 26 February, you can have anything you like set in arguably one of the world's famous typeface. So, what are you waiting for? Go.

Brockley: Lewisham Micro Library

Lewisham Micro Library is a community book swap micro library located on the border of Lewisham and Brockley. It is located on the south side of Lewisham Way where it meets with Loampit Hill, on the corner of Tyrwhitt Road, just outside Brockley Market.

The micro library is made up of a classic K2 red phone box. As with all free book swap libraries, you take a book to read and replace that with an old book you have already ready.

Our experience with buying a house in London

There is hardly a day that goes by without any form of news regarding the housing boom in London and Britain in general. Just over two months ago we completed and moved to a modest Victorian terrace in South East London, I feel that I had to write about our experience. If only I hope that our experience can help others to their advantage during this feeding frenzy, even if it is during this so-called off-peak winter period.

We started exploring the idea of moving out from St Albans into London around last year but Visa issues meant we had to delay until this year. That was an expensive mistake, as buying last year would have saved a lot more than what we paid for in the end, but something we had no control of. The reasons to moving to London is plenty, and while I understand that not everyone loves the idea of living in a capital, we just love it here.

When we started looking we narrowed down our range to East and South East London, particularly Rotherhithe and Hackney area, but it soon dawned on us that we could only get two bed flats with our budget. This wasn't an issue initially, and indeed we actually offered on a two bed riverside flat in Surrey Docks, only to be beaten by a cash buyer. In hindsight we dodged a bullet there, but the delay meant we were able to up our deposit and look for something bigger, and more importantly, a forever home.

As we've decided that perhaps we did not want to move into a larger flat, only to outgrow it in a few years and move again, we had a new focus. Being priced out of an area meant we had to look further afield. Fortunately the London Overground's East London Line expansion has brought us towards previously unconsidered areas of hip and trendy Brockley, Forest Hill, Peckham and Nunhead areas. Much to our delight, these areas contain a huge abundance of Victorian and Edwardian housing stock.

We registered with a couple of estate agents via emails, Rightmove/Zoopla and phone calls. We were naive initially believing we can always offer lower and enter a negotiation, but alas that proved fatal. Each and every time a new property gets listed, it gets offered on the next day. It was mental. We also made a mistake by offering lower than the asking price, only to be told that they've had multiple offers on the asking price.

The trick is to call the EAs every day. They have hundreds of interested buyers on their list so whenever a new property comes on their book, they only have so many people they can call. Just call, or better yet, visit them (do not bother with Rightmove if your priority is to be quick as most agents lists houses on Rightmove after they have contacted prospective buyers). Eventually these suits will remember that you are a serious buyer and, with luck, whenever they get a new instruction.

We got on really well with a particular agent. In fact we became 'hot buyers' (estate agent's words, not ours), so when the sale of a house we were interested in fell through, we were the first contacted. We viewed and offered on the property the evening after. Four months later we completed and moved in. We've lived here for two months now, and while the property has thrown endless of hidden problems (as do all homes new or old), we still love it here.

It was all stress for a couple of months, but in the end it was worth it. But we sure wouldn't want to repeat this process again anytime soon!

Android 4.4.2 improves Nexus 5 camera

Having been using the Nexus 5 for over a month now, I can declare that this is simply one of the best Android smartphones you can get for your money. It isn't perfect. For example the lack of expansion slot is a bit of a downer. But the most galling example has to be the camera.

Now, the quality of the camera's output isn't that bad if the conditions are right. But it's auto focus mechanism is iffy, especially on low light, and slow. Despite the inclusion of optical stablisation, you get all sorts of jerks. The white balance can also be a bit off, and the exposure compensation doesn't always work. I have had better pictures taken with the 8-megapixel powered no-OIS HTC 8X than with this device.