mns  2009-06-17 11:20   

JC and I went to the launch of ‘Best Love, Rosie’ by Nuala O’Faolain. Posthumously published in Ireland this is a beautifully written book and well worth reading. There were very mixed emotions at the launch, the sadness in that Nuala is gone, that almost a year had passed, and yet the joy of her family coming together to see this book finally coming out.
Years ago when I first read ‘Are You Somebody?’ which is Nuala’s autobiography, I remember thinking that it was one of the best and most moving autobiographies that I had read, and it still is. I highly recommend both the autobiography and her new and last novel.

On a completely separate note I would like to advise anyone in Great Britain who is thinking of opening an account with Southern Electric or Scottish and Southern Electric to think twice. I am inserting my latest letter to them – and please bear in mind I left England eleven months ago.

Dear Ms Barry,

Your letter re: Account number 392276121

I am in receipt of your letter dated 24th April, 2009 which I received on 19th May 2009.
While appreciating the kindly and conciliatory nature of your letter, I find myself reading it over and over and I try to make sense of it. Yes, on 19th December last, following a conversation with you or someone in your office, I sent a cheque for £700 stg. in full and final settlement of a bill on a/c no. 3922761219.
Let me run through the series of events that led to that. I lived in Bridgegate Chambers in Chester and you billed me for a property called The Shedman in the Isle of Man, and then threatened me with legal proceedings despite many phone calls from me telling you that I owned nothing in the Isle of Man and had never heard of the Shedman, and in fact have never been to the Isle of Man. Eventually when I told you to take me to court, you suddenly stopped billing me. I asked you to get the account for Bridgegate Chambers up and running. I rang several times about this. Nothing happened.
Eighteen months later, after I had moved back to Dublin, you suddenly set up an account (No. 39227 61219) and my first knowledge of this was a threatening letter from you telling me you were taking legal action against me. At no point have I wanted to shirk paying what was owing, and please bear in mind that I tried to pay you repeatedly during my tenancy in Bridgegate Chambers.
Now, having sent you a cheque for £700 stg. last December which you admit you received but then lost, you have started billing me for a whole new account. Your latest letter is using account number 392276121.
Let me clarify what I have had to do in the meantime (and this does not take into account that while living in Chester I must have phoned you ten or more times as well as repeatedly writing to you): I have tried to track the cheque which in the meantime you admit to having received. I have written to my bank, and today I phoned them – long distance – to have a stop put on the cheque. The phone call was almost a half hour long as they waded through my bank details to see if the missing cheque had in fact gone through. It had not, and they have charged me £10 stg. to have a stop put on it.
I am really concerned that if I send you another cheque that it too will disappear into the Kafkaesque labyrinth that is Southern Electric or, as your latest missive says ‘Scottish and Southern Electric’. It would be unclear to anyone at this point which account number is correct or indeed which company is billing me.
I have, however, decided to take a leap into the dark and send you another cheque for £450 in full and final settlement of all monies owing. I was under the impression that I was dealing with Southern Electric and am therefore making the cheque payable to that company.
Never in all my life have I encountered such treatment of a customer.
Yours sincerely, etc...

Now that I’ve got that off my chest I shall return to the re-write of my next novel. May the sun come out and may all badly run companies get their due desserts but not at the expensive of their unfortunate customers.