Postlethwaite is one of these rare actors who you can't help but watch. Like Morgan Freeman - if you are flicking through the channels and their face appears, you stop. And you are rarely disappointed.

I edited the post above to save James from going for that eye test.

Phew - a much more handsome specimen

Here's a funny thing that happened this morning.

A couple of months ago I was in the garage when a bloke walked down the driveway, shirt, tie and clipboard. I thought " 'Ello, who's this then?"

Turns out he was from Scottish power, and he wanted us to sign them up as our energy supplier. He did a few figures based on consumption and then told us that by signing up with him we would save twenty quid a month.

Now normally I wouldn't bother with this type of thing but I thought given that we are all in hard economic times at the moment then every penny counts right? So we signed up to Scottish power with the promise that our monthly direct debit would be £20.00 lower than it was previously with EON.

The energy bills are in the wife's name, and last week she got a letter from Scottish Power telling her that the direct debit was to increase by £25.00 a month to 'offset any increased consumption during the coming winter period'. She was deflated.

Like most women my Mrs doesn't like conflict, or arguments and so she handed me the letter and just said 'Deal with this will you Pete." Ok I thought, so I rang them up this morning to explain to them that although we do have gas central heating, there won't be such a huge spike in gas usage over the winter because I like a lovely coal fire in the front room, so I buy two bags of coal a week and chop lots of logs in winter, thus not using so much gas.

Well at least that's what I thought I was going to explain to them, only, because I wasn't the account holder they wouldn't speak to me. I explained that the Mrs had asked me to sort it and had since gone out shopping, but they simply repeated the same thing over and over like a mantra... "I'm sorry but we can only discuss this with the account holder"

Having put the phone down I was particularly miffed, especially as I'd spent ten minutes on hold before even getting through, but I remembered that when I first rang up the options list had offered a ring-back service to save you waiting on hold. So I dialled again and opted for the ring-back service, giving the account holder correctly as Julie **, my Mrs.

Ten minutes later the phone rang and I answered, a young man introduced himself as 'Adam' from Scottish power and asked to speak to Mrs. Julie ***, to which in my dulcet tones I replied "Speaking".

Now I obviously couldn't see this guy, but judging from the pause at the other end of the line this fella' was flummoxed.

"Mrs ***?" he asked again questioningly. "Yes that's me" I replied, making no attempt whatsoever to sound female.

We then went on to discuss the direct debit and resolved the matter amicably, but all the while I knew that this poor lad was thinking "This is a bloke!" But he daren't say so, because just as with the mantra of 'Sorry sir we can only speak with the account holder' they are also drilled in the the whole sexist/equality trans-gender thing.

As I said, we managed to resolve the matter amicably, but before the conversation ended the young man asked once more "Before I go can you tell me the name of the person I have just been speaking to please?"

"Certainly... my name is Julie".

The gas board tried that "I'm sorry but we can only discuss this with the account holder" when my father tried to get a final bill for my grandmother's house after my grandmother had died, even though he had probate (or whatever it is called), the daft phone-monkeys kept repeating the phrase "I'm sorry but we can only discuss this with the account holder" without even realising they were asking to talk with a dead person.
After many phone calls it was eventually sorted out.

miarke

Now that's what you call a punch line.

Made it worthwhile switching on the computer when I came in for an afternoon brew up,
back out to enjoy some of this Autumn sunshine now...

ken

ace!
can the mods now change all his posts to "Julie" for a further giggle

Brilliant

Is it wrong that I like some of these?

www.pinktentacle.com/2010/03/custom-scooters-from-japan