Whiplash still hurts, I thought I was better and stupidly scraped some wallpaper.  Idiot.  So the car has gone off on a truck and I have a Chevrolet Aveo to drive (black).  I quite like it but I am not sure JT is overwhelmed by it.

This morning I have quite bad whiplash…  My neck and back are hurting and I feel like a bit of a space cadet.  To their eternal credit, the insurance company with the little red telephone on wheels are  miles better for car insurance than home insurance, especially when it is not your fault!!

The car is being taken away on a truck at 2pm.  Enterprise are picking JT up at 4:30pm to furnish him with a courtesy car.  I have had a call from a solicitors’ firm to assess my injuries, missed work time and compensation and whether or not I need a physio assessment(!!)  At least I might be able to pay my Dad something for the car which will be on the back of a truck!!  The car should be fixed within a week.

So far so good, but it is sore.

Well it hasn’t been a marvellous 24 hours…  Bad IBS yesterday, then today I got my insurance settlement for the iphone – at last!!  Only took 6 weeks.  I went into town to by my new iPHone only to find that no one would sell me a PAYG iPhone!!!  They have limited stock and are not allowed to sell them unless they sare on contract.  I am sure this has everything to do with commission on contract sales and nothing to do with anything else.  I finally ordered one over the phone (3-5 working days) but could only get white I am not keen on the white one but at least combined with the pink cover, it will be in Pink Sky colours.

Then, on my way home from various activities, someone piled into the back of my car.  I ended up straddled across College Road, unable to move my (new) car because the metal back bit had been rammed under the wheel arch.  I was pretty shaky but managed to photograph the other guy’s car and exchange details and let him go before bursting into tears and sitting on the kerb waiting for JT to arrive.  I am now drinking hot chocolate and waiting for a pizza to arrive.  More calls to Direct Line… Just what I didn’t need!!

The other day I found some of my AS/A2 level art work and chuckled to myself…

I call this one “Still life and unidentifiable fruit”…. What are the green things?!

This is a really bad mobile phone pic of this one as it is massive…  The big man himself.

Clay chav

Bob Dylan… I was probably trying to be cool!

A Kathe Kollowitz

Kathe Kollowitz sketch/study

…I think I might have been going through a slightly dramatic phase!!

St Francis of Assisi

A Modigliani…. The original is not smoking a fag!  I seem to remember thinking she looked a bit stoned, so I added in the cigarette/spliff for dramatic effect.

Martin Smith

Drinking

In my week off I have been doing a bit of DIY….  Or rather ATDIY (Attempt To Do It Yourself).  This has consisted of decorating the hallway and I am now on to the dining room – WOoOOooP!  I have ordered the coolest wallpaper for one of the walls, can’t BELIEVE I got away with it…  Hot pink with black chandelliers!   Anyway…  For a while now, I have secretly wanted my very own screwdriver, as I have never had one before.  One of the ones which has different ends stored inside it to put in the end?  I wanted one in pink, but all they had was a very sensible looking yellow and black Stanley one, so I had to go with that.  Unfortunately it is not a ratchet one either Ah well.

I am quite excited about it, I am getting quite good at taking out screws, but haven’t really learnt how to put them in, as this enters the realms of drills (eeek!), wall plugs (huh?!), spirit levels (goldfish farts?!) and hard graft.  Not very ladylike.  So I have a screwdriver for UNscrewing things.

My screwdriver

Next step:

This is what I would REALLY like!

As some of you will know, my iPhone was taken from my person recently. I say recently, but it has now been five weeks since I reported it stolen.  Here is what has happened in the meantime:

I called the police the night it happened and they didn’t believe that it had been stolen.  “How do you know it was stolen?”  “Well, I had it and now I do not have it anymore”.  “How do you know you didn’t just lose it?” “Well technically I don’t know that I didn’t just lose it, but if I did, then someone now has it, because I spoke on it 20 minutes ago and it is now switched off.  If someone else has it and has no intention of letting me know, I can only assume that it has been stolen”.  “Oh.” And so it went on.

I was assured that, becauise I had been the “victim of an assault”, I would receive a call within 24 hours from victim support and that I would also receive an official letter with my crime reference number within two or three days.  To date, neither of these things have happened.  I had to phone for the crime reference number in order to claim on my contents insurance and the call was like something off Hot Fuzz!!  I got the dopiest police officer who could only say “ohhh…  That’s odd inniiiiit?  Ooo arrrr.  Don’t really know to be honnnest”.  Great.

My next task was to claim from the insurance company that have a red telephone as their logo.  All was straightforward initially.  I sent off my documents and heard nothing.  After a month I received a phonecall saying that I had sent the wrong crime reference number.  I asked why it had taken four weeks to let me know and they said that they had been very busy.  Marvellous excuse.  So have I you pillocks and I could really do with my work phone back to make life a little less complicated!!  I sent a letter detailing my concern and stated that I expected the matter to be dealt with in 3-5 working days as my policy suggests.

The next phonecall.  “Mrs Turner, we are phoning to let you know that we have awarded you £385, minus your £100 excess, so you will receive a cheque for £285.  Hmmmm that sounds a bit low to me”.  I said that, having claimed £440, the value of a replacement iPhone, it sounded a bit low to me too.  The result was, that because I had the iPhone 3G, which you can no longer buy, replacing the equivalent model (the 3Gs) would be considered an upgrade.  So they could not possibly do that and would have to take Apple’s last list price of the model that I had.

I was furious.  I told them that they are supposed to replace new for old and that if they could provide me with a 3G then I’d have it, but they couldn’t, so they’d have to give me a 3Gs.  With all the monehy that I gave them, I couldn’t believe they would quibble over £65 (£165 to me though with my excess).  I told them that if they were taking my premium under false pretences and had no intention of replacing the item then I would take them to trading standards.

A barrage of lies followed.  I spoke to them at 8pm when they closed and got an answerphone message at 9am the next morning when they opened, saying that the omburdsman and three other parties had recommended that they didn’t budge.  I asked when this might have been, 2am, possibly?  They coughed nervously.  I asked to speak to a manager only to find that every single manager for that particular insurance company was in a meeting and that none of the employees knew when it might finish.  When I said that I knew that business wasn’t run in such a manner, it transpired that they weren’t in a meeting at all, but that they didn’t speak on the phone unless a callback was requested.  Why didn’t you just say you wally??

After three more calls I got really fed up.  JT found an iPhone 3G on Expansys for me.  As you cannot buy the 3G anymore, it has rareity value.  The list price was £699.99.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it telephone monkeys.  I called back and said “I have a resolution.  If you absolutely insist that I have an iPhone 3G, then I will have one.  Unfortunately your list price is out of date because Apple cannot provide this phone anymore.  The correct list price is £699.99 and here is the web site that you can buy it for me from.  I hope this resolves both of our issues.”  A panicky monkey offered to call me back.

Callback came, “Because that phone is unlocked, it is considered an upgrade.”  I hit the roof.  “An unlocked phone is not an upgrade, it is the same phone.  It is the only phone available, so you can either buy it for me, or realise how utterly ridiculous this whole business is and pay the £65 extra to replace my phone with an actual phone and not a fictitious one.  If you insist on the 3G, then you can take the flinkin’ tenner off the £700 to cover the cost of unlocking the phone.”  I asked for a call from a manager and was promised one before 5pm.

At 5:30pm I rang back (no call) and was told that he was just about to call me actually (really??!  You mean he wasn’t still in a meeting?!) and let me know that all of a sudden they were able to “upgrade” me to the 3Gs.  At last!  5 weeks on, no cheque…. I think I might not be renewing my policies with this particular company this year….?