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For years now my wife has been trying to convince me to have a holiday in France. Her parents have a little place out there and she’s very keen for me to go and share in her passion for the country. Now, far be it from me to be unsupportive, but there is one slight snag with her plan. To say I don’t share her passion for France would be a bit of an understatement. To say I’d rather burn my own face off rather than spend any time in France would be slightly more accurate.I have been to France several times in my life and I don’t see what the big deal is. Their biggest tourist attractions are a stone arch and the world’s largest pylon. It costs more in tolls to drive on their motorways than you’ll ever pay in petrol and they eat Snails, Frogs and Horse.
I spent a weekend in the South of France a few years ago for a Karting event. Now, the South of France is renowned for its hot and sunny weather. Well when I was there in the middle of summer it rained for the entire weekend. I also had a crap race. Because I can’t really blame the weather or mechanical problems on the French, I tried to enjoy the rest of the weekend in what is supposed to be a paradise of Europe.
My team and I arrived at a rather posh looking bed and breakfast and were met by what I can only describe as the Basil Faulty of France. The owners epitomised the French stereotype and they made us feel like we were inconveniencing them by staying at their accommodation.
Deciding it might be a good idea to look elsewhere for dinner, we took a walk through town. Like all towns in France, the buildings all looked like they had been shipped in from the Middle East. They all looked run-down and the few that actually had paint on were peeling and just looked dirty.
After walking through a town that appeared to close down at 4pm every day, we eventually stumbled upon a restaurant. Whilst the French – despite their penchant for eating things that dwell in dark corners of the garden – are renowned for their fine cuisine, I can only describe it as a joke. French wine is hugely over-rated. Australian, New Zealand or South African is much better in my opinion. Even Chilean wine is preferable to my pallet. Then we come to the food. Like most French restaurants, this was one of those silly nouvelle cuisine places. This basically means they come over to the table with a silver plate about 3 feet in diameter, lift the lid and present you with a meal that you can only eat with a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers.
So, having almost died of malnutrition, we decided to go in search of proper food the following night. We managed to find another eatery down a dodgy looking alley that had “Pizza and Beer” in big letters across the front. We couldn’t go wrong with that. Actually yes we could. We sat down and proceeded to offend the waiter by daring to ask for six beers. The guy then had to rummage around the cellar for half an hour to find some. A bit daft for a place that advertises the beverage on the front of the building.
This brings me waving a white flag and retreating to the subject of poor service. Now, I’m aware I’ve ranted about utility companies several times already and, not wishing to sound like a stuck record, I have just one more… for now. It’s a well established fact that utility companies only hire mutants to work for them, but none more so it would seem than EDF.
For over a year now, I’ve been attempting to get meters moved in my house in order to bulldoze half of it down and plonk an extension on it. E.ON and the National Grid pissed me off beyond belief with their incompetence but theirs was nothing compared to the level of idiocy at EDF. Like the National Grid, they refuse to send someone round to give me a quote. Instead I had to talk to idiots on the phone who can only give answers based on instructions provided to them on their computer screen using a yes/no tree program that was developed my an autistic 8 year old. I was then expected to be an architect and draw my own plans for them. Fortunately, I am actually good at drawing so I provided a scale floor plan, complete with cupboards, sink and washing machine. I even included all the mess currently on the work surfaces. I then drew a rather crude self portrait where I am giving the finger.
They also wanted a map of where I live and the surrounding areas because the address and postcode I also supplied them obviously wasn’t enough. They also asked lots of technical questions involving things suffixed by Hz, AMP, KVA and HIV and gave me some sort of long equation on how to convert STD’s to HIV or something like that. So basically they expect me to be a mathematician, an electrician and an architect because they are too stupid and lazy to do their job properly.
Perhaps I’m just out of touch but I’m sure in most walks of life it’s not this hard to get a quote. A plumber for example; I’ll ask them to do a job, they come round, I make them a cup of tea, they quote me happy and I get them to do the job. It works the same in my line of work. People ask me to build them a website, I provide a quote for them and if they are happy, I do the work and charge them afterwards.
Not only do EDF want money up front but they charge through the nose for it. They also appear to have a monopoly – something I’m sure the trading standards people would have something to say about.
Anyway, after emailing the maths quiz and art work, I never heard a peep out of them. When I eventually chased them up they claimed to have sent me a letter back telling me I hadn’t filled in bits of information that I know full well I did. They then claimed the reason I hadn’t received it was because it had probably got lost in the post. Naturally I didn’t believe them. So after taking a few deep breaths and going to my happy place for a few hours, I sent the stuff off again and received a quote back for an amount that only the Queen of England could afford. When I questioned how the hell moving a plastic box a few feet and cutting a few wires off could be so expensive, I was basically told that was their standard charge and it would still cost me a million pounds even if I wanted to move it a millimetre. And, no, I couldn’t get an electrician to do it because they have a monopoly and they are basically thieving, obnoxious mutants with no sense of customer service. Of course I shouldn’t be surprised by this. After all, they are French.