Most of my evening has been spent on the phone to customer service help lines. I say most of my evening, that’s a slight exaggeration. It was more like 15 minutes (at most).

I had my “big shop” delivered by Tesco this week. Being a male, living alone, my shopping orders are somewhat predictable – primarily consisting of pizza, cider and curry. Although this time there was no curry! I ordered curry. I was charged for curry. Was curry delivered? Nope. There was no curry!

A quick call to Tesco HQ was soon made. Judging by the accent of the bloke on the phone, Tesco Customer Services have moved to Swansea. Still, the nice man offered to refund my Tikka Masala, but only after asking what brand of curry it was – “Tesco or Virgin”. If Richard Branson has moved into the Indian food business, it’s news to me. As well as a refund on my curry, I also managed to blag money back on all delivery charges. Not a bad day’s work. The money saved on delivery will pay for a takeaway curry.

As well as grocery problems, I’ve also had issues with my internet connection. While trying to watch the Manchester United/Spurs game online, the net decided to die again. While trying to fix it and swearing at the same time, I was interrupted mid-rant by a telephone call. On the end of the phone was BT. Anyone who has seen the classic sitcom Bottom will remember when the guys broke into Mr. Rottweiler’s house to remove the illegal gas supply. When it all goes wrong and a fire starts, Mr. Rottweiler shouts for help from the gas man, only to conveniently find one standing on his door step. My cry for help from BT, immediately being followed by them calling my landline, was very similar to that classic Bottom scene.

BT were about as helpful as… well… errr… it’s too late to think of a good analogy, but put it this way – they were rubbish. All they wanted to do was sell me BT Infinity and not fix my existing problem. I must admit, the offer of fibre optic broadband was tempting, but the fact their package offers a pitiful 40gig of bandwidth a month means it’ll be a no go for me.