User frustrations

Crowds of shoppers continue to pour into the city to visit the new John Lewis store. Everywhere else seems to be benefiting as well, including the tea room, which was very busy today, and as it turned out, short staffed, so I had to wash up before and after the Eucharist to help them cope with the demand.

This meant that I wasn't able to go up to St Michael's College for the introduction of new students on placement, but for me this year it wasn't so crucial as Andrew Highway and I have known each other since I started the job here in the city centre. By sheer co-incidence, Sunil and I bumped into Andrew yesterday afternoon in John Lewis', as he was taking a detour in between work meetings to check it all out.

After the tea room closed, I spent an hour on the computer checking to see if Talktalk had done anything to remedy the line fault (reported yesterday) which is making our internet connection an occasional, fleeting thing. How much we've come to rely on having the facility in church, to keep everything running efficiently. I guess there's been a wholesale shift in communications and administrative culture which is now reaching into every corner of society. Since the advent of broadband, it's become so pervasive. Yet, quite apart from the quality of the infrastructure not keeping up with demand, the quality of the actual means of communication and the discipline with which they are used are still less than fit for purpose, still less than idiot-proof.

O know, for instance that my old email address still lives on in office PC circulation lists and data servers in the Council, the Church in Wales and a host of other organisations, all of which have been requested (often more than once) to take note of the new address and delete the old. I can have correspondence with people using my current address, and then miss a vital distribution of documents because the information update has not been rigorously entire. On top of this, there are issues of security. To keep up to date and secure all the time involves a fair amount of machine minding for individual users, small offices etc. There's the temptation not to bother if one is in a hurry, and that may lead to a machine being compromised. Every new improved system turns out to have its flaws and weaknesses, and its frustrations because the usability and intelligibility of the user interface is simply not good enough for new and experienced users alike.

Most cars are familiarly similar in the layout of their basic controls for a driver to be able to get in and go. Road layouts and signage conventions are the same on a national basis, and nearly the same internationally, apart form the side of the road you drive on. Why can't safe and efficient use of computers be as simple to adapt to as driving a car?

Clare and I decided to go down the Bay to watch Nofit State circus in Roald Dall Plas. We opted to go by bus. The first to turn up outside the Hilton was only going as far as the station. The driver said there was one behind going all the way. So we didn't get on, we waited. Ten minutes later, the next one sailed past us bearing the information that it was not in service. Having waited 20 minutes, this left us insufficient time to walk to the other side of the city centre and catch a bus that would get us there for the start of the circus, so we gave up and went home, annoyed.

Admittedly early evening is a transitional time with bus routing, due to the closure of lower St Mary Street to make it safer to fall about drunk all night without being rolled over by a bendy bus. The lack of useful relevant information to aid bewildered visitors and knowledgable locals alike is utterly contemptible laziness on the part of the company's marketing arm. It undermines the efforts the city is making to raise itself in the ranks of must-visit destinations.

Delays and delays

I just had a phone call from my sister June, on her land line - finally working again, sixteen days after it went dead, following letters and phone calls from me, and more significantly from cousin Di, a TV journalist! Somewhat bemused, June said that her first call had been from a BT engineer, stating, though not apologising, or offering any explanation, that her line had been switched off. Presumably this was during the first few hours of down-time, when the automatic voice recording announced that there was a problem at the exchange. So, it was not as simple a matter as TalkTalk's customer interface being unable to cope with the needs of a non-mobile phone owning customer with hearing problems, BT was also in on the act, for reasons unexplained.

It was great to hear the relief in June's voice, at getting her ordinary phone back. Her acute hearing sensitivity means that the output of the mobile phone I bought her last Friday makes it painful to use. Like the Queen, I told her, you only have to use it to call out in an emergency. Otherwise, don't give anyone else your number. Thank heavens that's over for the time being. I can stop worrying now.

St John's churchyard is looking a lot less unmanageable this afternoon. Two mornings running, pouring rain notwithstanding, a crew of tree surgeons have removed a eucalyptus tree which hung over the main path in a threatening way, cut own a self seeded ash, cut back huge bushes, and thinned out foliage on remaining trees. It's possible to see in and out of all areas for the first time in years. It's lighter, and looks cleaner. The grass gets mowed regularly, but it's now much more evident with the bushes and trees all neat. It's taken ages to arrange to get this done as our trees are subject to Council protection orders and cannot be touched without prior agreement with the Tree Preservation Officer.

Finding out the right person and getting him to make an inspection visit took a while. Philip was marvellously diligent in finding out the right person, and making all the contacts. The TPO wouldn't let us take down a tree we were most concerned about because its roots were pushing up the paving, although he did agree to allowing the roots to be cut back and the insertion of a barrier to prevent them spreading under the path again, as part of his overall recommendations to manage the trees. It's cost a fair sum of money to do the job, but it all adds to the 'uplift' of the church in the midst of the centre's only green space. All that's needed now is to get that path re-paved. And we're having problems sourcing the exact kind of stone which the diocesan advisory committee specified as a condition of giving a faculty.

The PCC resolved to renew the paving and prune the trees three years and two months ago, as its precarious state was giving rise to Health and Safety concerns. We were obliged to take up a few paving slabs for the Tree Protection man to inspect roots, and in doing so made a effort to level them up temporarily until the full job could be be done. But with all the delays, I wonder if it will be complete before I retire?

TalkTalk frustration

Since yesterday, my sister June's phone has been out of order, except that the Talk Talk answering service kicks in and offers to record a message. She rang from a neighbour's place to let me know and ask if I would contact TalkTalk her service providor to inform them, although she was aware of a breakdown at the local exchange, from a recorded message issued by the help line service.

My recent experience of Talk Talk on this count has been unsatisfactory. They do not accept any request concerning a phone line from a third party, only the account holder. You can inform them of a problem, but they will not accept a request to instigate line testing procedure from anyone else, because of the liability that testing will lead to repair charges if lines or equipment are damaged within the account holder's property.

As my sister is in her mid seventies and she is not a mobile phone user, this policy to my mind places her at risk, when her phone goes dead. If she was unable to get out of the house to phone and had a fall she would be unable to raise the alarm. Not good. I used TalkTalk's complex and unfriendly electronic help system to report the problem, but so far, no acknowlegement only frustration.