April 2007 Issue

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Just Chat

I arrived home from a weeks holiday to find seven lawns in need of cutting, several emails reminding me of work I have to do and an enormous amount of advertising material lying on the mat. I appreciate the reminders of work I have to do and I accept that the lawns need cutting but I strongly object to the huge amount of advertising that I am bombarded with. I can't get away from it, even on holiday. Having been in business myself for most of my life, I also accept that a certain amount of advertising is acceptable but not the huge amount that we get today. I subscribe to our local newspaper who recently telephoned me to ask if I was satisfied with their service and their product. I told them that I was very satisfied with their service and reasonably satisfied with their publication but what I was not satisfied with was the fact that they charged me for it. They could not understand this so I explained that about 8o% of the paper was advertising and of the rest most was only of interest to neighbouring areas, leaving me with very little interesting news and the sport and death columns. I don't think that they agreed with me.

Another source of grievance regarding advertising is Sky Television. I pay about £48 per month for this service that when you take out the advertising, forthcoming attractions and long lead ins to programs leaves me with about half of the viewing time.

I couldn't even get away from computers on holiday. My sister has just purchased a computer and neither her or my brother in law know much at all about how to use it, so I was drawn in to helping them quite a bit. My brother in law is interested in photography so I was able to help him a bit with this as well as giving them general instructions on how to use the computer. My sister is only interested in the internet and as members know this is not an area that I have much knowledge of. I do use the internet on very odd occasions and send the occasional email but not using it very often I am bombarded with advertising when I do.

My sister is on broadband through Tiscali. This seems to me to be another racket. When I wish to send an email I use Outlook Express which is easy to use but with Tiscali it is set up to use Internet Explorer from where you have to navigate through several options to use e mail after which you are transferred to Outlook Express. Being the knowledgeable one, I offered to alter this so that when using email they could go straight into Outlook Express. I set up an icon on their desktop and attempted to change things so that with a click of the mouse you could go straight into Outlook Express. I messed about for hours and in the end had to give up. It would seem that Tiscali has set up things so that you have to go into Internet explorer first, and why? I suspect that by going into Internet explorer first you are presented with another load of advertising junk. As I said I am not very knowledgeable about the internet and I could be wrong and there may be a way of getting straight into Outlook Express but I am suspicious. I think it more likely that they want to push the advertising content.

My sister has a modest computer that seems to work very well although my brother in law will have to invest in some graphic programs for his photography.

I was most impressed with the printer that they have which is a Hewlett Packard model HP Photosmart C4180 All In One. I am not very keen on the idea of all in one printers but I must say that this model does work extremely well. The printer accepts several types of memory cards and prints excellent photographs as well as scanning and copying.

Yes I know, I am getting old and crotchety and full of complaints. I appreciate modern technology but I remember the days when people walked around without a phone stuck in their ear. When you were not bombarded with advertising. When you spoke to someone at the end of a phone without getting some recorded voice, when you could write and sent letters through the post. When you did not spend hours in front of a computer.

Did I write that ?