Last night I was one of the co-chairs for the Southwark election to the House of Laity of the C of E General Synod. It was quite interesting. Besides two troglodytes (on whom I would not piss if they were on fire) the rest of the candidates ranged from the barely vocal to the very erudite. I made my choices this morning: there are 16 people running for 7 places, and I used my transferable vote to rank 10 out of the 16, and did not bother with the rest. As Chair, of course, I couldn’t ask questions or make rude comments. However, when one of the troglodytes mentioned that Bp. Gene Robinson had left his wife for his male lover (he didn’t meet his current partner until well after he had divorced his wife) I wanted to give him a smack upside the head.
Of course, when this “gentleman” mentioned that when he had spoken with the Dean of Southwark (a stalwart liberal) about what the troglodytes would do if woman bishops were consecrated in the C of E, the Dean told him “you can bugger off”. I agree with the Dean. And the sooner they bugger off, the better.
There is one candidate from my Deanery; she is also a dual US/UK citizen, but from Virginia, and is a very straightforward liberal candidate. I do hope she gets elected. We will know the results sometime after October 1st.
This morning, when I got the post, there was a questionnaire from London Energy asking me to fill it out to tell them why I had switched electricity providers. I had done no such thing! So I called London Energy and they told me that British Gas was now my electricity supplier. British Gas has an appalling customer service record, and I wasn’t about to let them get their hands on my money. So I called the numbers for British Gas that London Energy gave me. I was on hold (on a local-rate phone number) for 10 minutes before a so-called “customer service representative”, Sue, answered. She couldn’t help me, but promised to connect me to the Erroneous Transfer Office! Seemingly they have so many erroneous transfers that they need a whole office full of people to deal with them. After another 10-minute wait, she came on and chirped that she couldn’t get through; could she take my details so they could call me back? I demanded to speak with her supervisor. After another 1 or 2-minute hold, Marie came on. I said, “It seems that some scam artist has tried to transfer my electricity account without my knowledge.” She indignantly denied that they did any such thing, confident in the surety that someone in the household had signed the contract. I told her to wise up, and she asked for my name (again), and then HWMBO’s name. Oh. It seemed that neither of our names was the one on the contract. I told her that it was her fault (just to rub it in; I was incandescent by this point) that this happened and that it was to be reversed immediately. She said, “We will reverse the transfer, and you should be back with London Energy within 6 to 8 WEEKS.” (emphasis mine!) I was livid! She told me to ignore any material that British Gas sent me, but that they would send me a letter within ten days confirming that the transfer would be reversed. I wouldn’t have to pay them a thing.
Of course, the cost of my time, and the cost of the telephone bill are not covered. So I’m still out of pocket because their shyster salesperson got the flat number wrong on the contract. I still think they do it on purpose and hope that people don’t notice.
On that cheery news I went to the gym.