A Brighton Boy Blogs

When an airline destroys your suitcase on your outbound flight, you’d like to expect that they’d be not only apologetic but also perhaps actively help you find a replacement for the journey home. Alas in Monarch’s case they failed on every step of the way to customer service satisfaction.

We reported the completely smashed International Traveller hard-shell suitcase at Grenoble Airport, where we did the necessary paperwork and were told we’d have to contact Monarch within seven days in order to claim compensation. That meant we’d have to do it while we were in France. The suitcase was unsalvageable so we’d also have to source a replacement whilst in the ski resort of La Plagne, where it’s easy to find ski or snowboarding stuff but incredibly hard (and expensive) to get items such as suitcases.

So, during the week we took time out from what we were meant to be doing on a skiing holiday to talk to Monarch about the claim and find a new suitcase. All we had was mobile phone, so at our great cost we called Monarch and held on listening to some of the most expensive hold-music ever created, before speaking to a lady who took all our details and offered us a measly £45 compensation. As I said, it’s incredibly hard finding something so mundane as a suitcase in a skiing resort with village/small town facilities and a single-minded focus on snow sports. On the third trip around the shops my girlfriend managed to find a large Ripcurl bag for €130, which at the time was near enough £130 – leaving us with a whopping £85 shortfall on a new bag which we were only buying because our suitcase had been smashed by people working on behalf of Monarch Airlines. Oh, and nothing to say sorry for all the time wasted, skiing missed and roaming phone costs endured.

Around 10 days after we returned, the cheque for £45 turned up in the post along with a letter that was full of empty apologetic platitudes which had exactly the same effect as if they’d included a hand-scribbled note saying “sod off and don’t waste our time in future”. Completely meaningless, corporate waffle, devoid of any real conviction, and rendered meaningless by the accompanying derisory compensation. All of which leads me to the unescapable conclusion that Monarch Airlines doesn’t actually care about its customers at all, and in a cut-throat and competitive market place, that is surely a rather stupid attitude to have.

Consumer Issues, Righteous Indignation Consumer Issues, travel

I’m finally turning away from Royal Mail for most of my business carriage. I’ve tried to remain loyal, after all it’s one of those Great British Institutions, isn’t it? But when it’s this painful, you’ve got to wonder… are Royal Mail management really trying to commit commercial suicide? It certainly looks that way from here.

We have been using Royal Mail Smartstamp to prepay and locally print postage labels. It’s an imperfect solution, particularly for tracked services like “signed for” (or recorded delivery as it used to be known) and “special delivery”. Those services have to be completed at a post office where most of the staff either don’t know how to handle them or really can’t be bothered. That’s if you can find a post office that’s open when you need to post something. Many were closed in major cuts during 2008. I went to four of them one Wednesday afternoon & found all closed. All are in roads with parking problems and not at all easy to use. On my fifth attempt on the following day I was told my package was too big for their window & should be taken to a main post office. So not wanting to give up before the sixth attempt I went to the nearest main post office only to be told that my item was 11cm too big to be sent as a signed-for item. And still my customer is waiting.

Part of the problem seems to stem from the split of the Post Office from Royal Mail years ago. It created a complete disconnection between the two halves of the process. Neither really knows what the other half is doing, or cares about the customers caught between the two halves.

So it’s off to a courier company for me, and RIP Royal Mail, once it finally breathes its last and dies.

Consumer Issues, Righteous Indignation Consumer Issues, customer service

Sometimes, just occasionally, inspiration comes along and in a flash you have the answer to a whole raft of problems, all at once. It was a bit like that for me one morning as I fought my way up the A23/A27 slip road trying desperately to move from the right hand lane across three lanes of traffic to the left hand filter lane for the A27 Westbound whilst the other drivers coming up the inside aggressively accelerated to prevent me from doing so.

We all know that our roads are too crowded. We all know that there are many, many bad drivers on the road. Most of us know that we’re killing the planet by driving too many cars, and that we should stop. Many of us aspire to improving our health and that of the planet by cycling everywhere, but it’s made harder by belligerent car drivers and dangerous cyclists, as well as the Great British Weather. We also know in our heart of hearts that it would be better for the environment, and probably for our souls, if we all took public transport but we’re also aware that it’s a less than perfect transport solution for a number of reasons. First, there’s the underinvestment, partly caused by a lack of bums on seats; second the fact that it has to share space with all the other more dominant forms of transport including all those idiot bad drivers in their cars… who, incidentally also make our roads more dangerous, cause more accidents, cost the NHS, emergency services and British businesses lots of money, and generally cause misery and stress.

So where’s the inspiration in all this? It’s quite simple actually. Just get the UK Government’s so-called Driving Standards Agency to do its job: raise driving standards. In short, make the driving test a lot more difficult, and the required standard of driving far higher. Then less people will pass, and there’ll be less drivers on the roads. Anyone who has had a road traffic accident in which fault was either theirs or inconclusive should be forced to retake the driving test, as should the elderly, annually. Anyone who took their driving test before, for example, 1985, should also retake their test, and the general population should take a fresh test every 10 years.

The result: less cars on the road, more use of public transport, more income to public transport, more investment in public transport; safer roads, less cost to NHS, less disruption to surgical schedules by emergencies; and the nation would be far more likely to hit its carbon emission targets with fewer cars sitting in traffic jams caused by selfish twats who drive like morons on our overcrowded roads.

So, over to you… what do you think?

Righteous Indignation, Social/Political Comment Brighton, cars, driving, environment, transport

Years ago – in 1981 – when I was a mere fourteen years of age, I started doing the London to Brighton Bike Ride. Living in Brighton, we’d get up very early, catch one of the special trains to Clapham Junction, and proudly start the ride. Depending on the mood of our little group of friends, we’d either complete the thing in a few hours, or take our time, make loads of stops for Women’s Institute doughnuts and so on, and get into Brighton sometime in the afternoon. We’d be able to ride home to freshen up, then go out for a quick meal in the evening. It’s an annual event that holds a fond place in my memory over many consecutive years.

At some point in the late 80’s I stopped doing the ride. I had seen it get more over-crowded and dangerous, with so many people doing the ride unofficially that fast downhill sections like Slugwash Lane had become scenes of many inevitable accidents – one year I remember seeing the road awash with blood – and narrow uphill sections were turning the event into the London to Brighton Bike Shuffle.

I did the ride with my wife & friends a couple of years during the late 90s & early 2000s, but things weren’t much better. So it was goodbye L2B from me.

Yesterday I experienced once again the utter farce of what the London to Brighton Bike Ride does to Brighton. Road closures would be OK. Diversions fine. But when tens of thousands of extra cars (many of them 4×4 domestic trucks) are coming into Brighton for the sole reason that they’re picking up one or more cyclists, something is badly wrong. Traffic down a 15-mile stretch of the A23 came to a virtual standstill. Doesn’t the British Heart Foundation care about it? Surely the pollution alone should tell them that something has to change – it certainly can’t be good for the heart, and I wonder what the British Lung Foundation would say on the matter. And making it the day of countless other summer events, village fetes, and indeed Father’s Day – that’s just asking for trouble.

I daresay nothing will change next year. It’s a stupid, overhyped event which has become unmanageable. Sure it had noble roots and a great cause behind it, but nowadays it’s just a menace. At the very least it needs a new route, a major rethink, better public transport coordination, and a ban on pickups by car. The London to Brighton Bike Ride has gone bad.

Righteous Indignation Brighton, cycling, events

The BBC has long been known for its excellent science & nature programmes. I grew up on them; some thirty years ago David Attenborough himself introduced me to Darwinian evolution through the process of Natural Selection in his seminal series “Life on Earth”. Yes, that was back in 1979 when I was just 12 years old. They have always been the ordinary person’s way into even the most complex science.

Now the BBC’s “South Pacific”, being shown back-to-back with Dr Alice Roberts’ “The Incredible Human Journey”, continue the tradition. Unfortunately in the last decade the rise of right-wing Christian fundamentalism and its insidious invention of “Intelligent Design” has begun to erode all the good work which has sought to enlighten and educate ordinary people. Read more…

Righteous Indignation, Social/Political Comment BBC, intelligent design, religion, science, television

Having witnessed the Police presence in Brighton today for the “Smash EDO” protest, which led me to have to drive a 10-mile diversion to deliver my girlfriend to work, I read with interest the statement issued by the Brighton & Hove City Commander, Chief Supt Graham Bartlett, as follows: Read more…

Righteous Indignation, Social/Political Comment Brighton, EDO, fear, Police, Smash EDO

Incredible. This morning (about half an hour ago actually) I witnessed an Adur Council refuse collection vehicle being driven into my childrens’ school at we arrived. The driver was self-righteously waving away parents dropping their kids off at school as he drove the wrong way up a narrow road which everyone voluntarily treats as a one-way street, and tried to maneuvre the lorry into the narrow driveway. I stayed clear, allowing him to pass.

A few minutes later, Read more…

Consumer Issues, Righteous Indignation, Social/Political Comment Adur Council, bin men, Brighton, refuse collectors, rudeness, Sussex, waste management

I love taking my shoes off at the end of a busy day. It’s the first thing I do when visiting my friends’ houses. But through the airport security, when I’m already being made to carry my outdoor coat, having removed everything from my pockets and decanted everything including drinking water and each of my many bodily fluids (blood, urine, sweat, semen and both vitreous and aqueous humours) into 100ml bottles sealed inside a transparent ziplock bag (or even worse, to dispose of them, never to be seen again), removing my boots is really the last straw. Read more…

Righteous Indignation, Social/Political Comment airlines, airports, biofuels, control, fear, governments, politics, security, sustainability, terrorism, travel

0800 GMT: Yay it’s Christmas Day. I’m alone because my girlfriend is working today, and this year my sons are with their mum for Christmas day. I am going to make it a really good one. Read more…

Righteous Indignation, Social/Political Comment Christmas, journal, solitude

Sometimes I have a negative experience dealing with a service provider. When I do, I tend to report it here, honestly and fairly. Of course I try to report the positives too, they just get a bit outnumbered. What I absolutely don’t do, however, is to accept offers of money or any other kind of remuneration to remove negative reports, or indeed post positive reports.

Please take note, especially the one (who shall remain anonymous) who contacted me offering me a substantial cash payment if I were to remove the report about them. Tsk. Shame on you. Integrity still counts for something round here you know.

Consumer Issues, Righteous Indignation blackmail, bribery, honesty, integrity