There is a fabulous shop in Bermondsey Street Called Lovely British. It is indeed lovely, and as far as I can tell after some significant nosing around that everything in it is British. It is irony in no small measure then that the shop is run by a lovely lady with a heavy French accent.
One of the recurring themes in my life is the constant need I have to get into tussles, fights, disagreements with people and organisations. It's monotonous, and causes me to question why it happens. If I won some and lost some then I would just think of it as the ups and downs of life. If I lost them all, or nearly all, I would think of it as just me being a scrapper. But as it happens, there's hardly an occasion when I'm wrong, when I lose. That means to me, at least, that just to get through the mundanities of life I have to fight, fight, fight. Of course over the years this has made me, probably, more aggressive than I should be. This I'm convinced is nurture vs nature and at the moment nurture is the thing.
I wrote some time ago...we may be talking years here rather than months and certainly weeks...that I had taken on the management company for a flat I owned. The result was eight, nearly nine thousand pounds in my pocket. The tribunal had sided with me when they hadn't produced any accounts as required in the lease. The management company then did as they were told and started producing 'accounts'. I was suspicious so I had a look. A close look. They didn't look right. In fact they looked distinctly wrong. The Cat's Mother who is a Chartered Accountant agrees. The management company wouldn't budge, and so after a bit of a hiatus...and a threatening solicitor's letter from them (obviously a firm based in Liverpool - well why not when the property is in London, the managing agent is in Essex, the freeholder is in Surrey or there abouts?), I'm back filing a claim at the Residential Valuation Tribunal. We're fighting over £5000.
In March I changed energy supplier from EDF to OVO...you may not have heard of Ovo, but do look them up, they're one of the smaller suppliers, and it will make your heart feel good. I heard nothing more from EDF until the beginning of November (yes that's a full eight months since I switched supplier. It was a final gas bill - they owed me just under £500. I'm still waiting for the final electricity bill. They would send me a cheque. Come the middle of December nothing so I rang them. Yes they said they haven't sent me a cheque they will. By the time I get the money it'll be nine months since I stopped have energy supplied by them. I find this unacceptable, as I bet they do that to everyone. That's a fat pile of cash they're sitting on which they don't deserve. They offered me £40 to go away. I said more. They offered my £50 if I don't rat on them to the Ombudsman. I took their 40 quid and told them I would complain to the Ombudsman. I have. I think they are a disgrace. I don't much care for the forty or fifty quid, but I seriously object to multinational companies taking consumers for a ride.
I still have an outstanding complaint with the Financial Ombudsman over Lloyds TSB.
I'm popping over the road now to buy something lovely and British.
