I got a call today from 01792 306900. They were offering me cheaper mobile phone insurance.
I smelled a rat, so I asked them if they could tell me anything about my account, whether it was my home number, address, date of birth, anything. They couldn't tell me a thing apart from my mobile number (which they had dialled).
They tried this on me a few months back and I reported them to O2. I reported them again this time.
What I find confusing, however, is that after a little Googling today, this telephone number has been used for at least a year for the sole purpose of extorting money out of people, pretending to be offering phone insurance for people.
In total, this is the third time a Swansea based number has been used to try and scam me out of money like this. The first time, I had bought a phone from Phones4U where they were so desperate for me to get phone insurance, they gave me in cash more than the total amount of the insurance over a 12 month period. I wondered why until I got that call.
But if this company keeps using a Swansea based number, surely someone can try and sort it out? Can't someone call BT and say something along the lines of 'where does 01792 306900 go?'
I know that I've jested about Swansea and the people of Swansea in the past, but this is no joke; these people are like a bath filled with fresh human turds, covered with five day old custard and gone-off gravy.
Wednesday 13 August 2008
Saturday 9 August 2008
AblazeUK 08 - A Personal Review
The AblazeUK Apostolic Church conference finished on Thursday so I figured I'd do a little review to say what I thought were the good points and bad points. Some of it will be tongue-in-cheek, but I'll leave it up to your intelligence to work out which bits they are.
now then, to counter the tradition of reviews, I'm going to give say straight away what I thought of the conference; If I had to use but one word, it would be Brilliant. If I was allowed to use two words, they would be Absolutely and Brilliant. Three words? Absolutely, Utterly and Brilliant.
So, here's my breakdown
Content
I've not been shy of saying that past conferences have been a little short of not very good, mainly because of the content. This time, the content was everything I needed; challenging, funny, uncomfortably revealing, comforting, uplifting, directing, renewing... lots of really good stuff.
Apart from one (maybe two) shouty sermons, the quality was out of this world. Jeff Lucas is, in my opinion, a Christian equivalent to a cross between Larry David and Ben Elton, but with his 'observational preaching' (have I just coined a phrase there?) came numerous very sharp points that made me reconsider my attitude toward much of my life. The same can be said about Malcolm Duncan who was sharp and honest. The new National Leader showed from the start that he means business and that frightens me - which is a great thing!
There was a very healthy emphasis on prayer. The word emphasis doesn't do this justice. In past conferences, prayer was a sideline, a fringe event for extremists with zip-up Bibles and notepads the size of a small table. This time, prayer was everywhere.
This is how much this conference has changed; there was more emphasis placed on prayer than there was on money.
How awesome is that!? Oddly enough, the lack of emphasis on money made me happier to give money to the cause and wish I had more to give.
The content of the conference alone is enough to make up for anything bad that could be said about the event. It was astounding. Could it be better? I hope so else there's not much to look forward to next year, but this conference was such an enormous leap that I'm still catching my breath.
Did I mention that this was very good?
Amenities
So, the meat aside, let's look at some trivial, dare I say periphery issues. For example, the toilets. Yes, the toilets. These are the kind of toilet you daren't stay in for longer than five minutes else your clothes will stink of that blue radioactive goo they use to flush the things. Euch. Not nice and everyone outside can see your pants if you need to do a Number 2 (unless you're someone who keeps them around your knees and not ankles).
Food was good, if a little pricey - but you could always shop around for a bargain in the food tent. For example, Bacon Fries were 60p on one table but 50p on the other. Great, save some money and slap it into the collection basket (actually, it was more of a collection sick-bowl - I'm sure I've hurled chunks into a bowl like that before).
However you look at it, the food tent provided a handy meeting and eating place where you could browse some good books and get yourself a carved wooden angel (who came up with that idea!? Carved wooden angels that seem to have the same sentiment as Carebears - Here's Happy Angel, here's Comforting Angel, here's Special-Time-Of-The-Month Angel and here's Gardening Angel).
You just had to be careful if you sat in the eating area 'cause you could have gone flying head-over-heels on a floor that was about as flat as the Brecon Beacons.
There was also an underused creche facility. Underused because (rightfully) proud parents would (wrongly) rather block isles and exits with triple-buggy prams and bags of bottles so that everone can see the fruit of their loins, instead of making use of the actual creche and allow the rest of the conference get on with things without having to watch a brat puking up his flumps and flying saucers. However, I must provide disclosure here and say that I spent three services with my awesome nephews, right there in the tent, so go ahead and shoot me.
Location
I still do not understand why the Apostolic Church chose Swansea for the conference. Swansea is not central, is not accessible..... is not even nice. It was only called a city because the people there were jealous of Cardiff and if a city's biggest selling point is a fountain outside McDonald's, then you get the jist of Swansea (yes, I know, there's Rhosilli, Gower etc - but isn't it odd that all the best things about Swansea are outside of Swansea, where the people aren't?)
But, let it not be said that I never have anything good to say about Swansea - the parking for the conference was reasonable at £1.50 per day and you were within walking distance of the shops... and the fountain outside McDonald's. There is a beach, if you don't mind playing Super-Frogger in the four lanes of traffic, but take a plastic bag - you may want to clean a spot for yourself in the sand before you sit down (I was lucky, I found an old crate which kept my botty clear of the ground which makes the conference toilets look good enough to eat off).
Company
Some people say that your average Apostolic is like a Pharisee with the friendliness taken out. I think that's terribly unfair and the Pharisees weren't as bad as that. Yet, the sad truth is that the conference is geared toward people who are either in couples or in groups. There is no provision whatsoever for single, on-their-own, honest-to-goodness, lonely people. There's nothing at all to do in the day, unless you're in a group or you're a woman and the day starts with a Mon.
If you go to the morning service, you have a limited choice for what to do in the afternoon;
Conclusion
I wanted to start with the serious positives before moving onto the not-so-serious negatives because the positive is so positive, I found I really don't care about the negatives. In the past, I've felt that there wasn't enough positive to warrant enduring the negatives, but this time, things were different and, more importantly, by the end of the conference, I was different.
You see, looking at all the negatives I've written here, it sounds like I want to world to change to suit me. I did. But the bottom line is that rather than change the world to make me feel comfortable, God is in the business of changing me to make me stronger.
In the same way as I had to learn to deal with the negatives in order to appreciate the very real positives in this year's conference, I encourage anybody who's offended by this review to get over it.
;-)
now then, to counter the tradition of reviews, I'm going to give say straight away what I thought of the conference; If I had to use but one word, it would be Brilliant. If I was allowed to use two words, they would be Absolutely and Brilliant. Three words? Absolutely, Utterly and Brilliant.
So, here's my breakdown
Content
I've not been shy of saying that past conferences have been a little short of not very good, mainly because of the content. This time, the content was everything I needed; challenging, funny, uncomfortably revealing, comforting, uplifting, directing, renewing... lots of really good stuff.
Apart from one (maybe two) shouty sermons, the quality was out of this world. Jeff Lucas is, in my opinion, a Christian equivalent to a cross between Larry David and Ben Elton, but with his 'observational preaching' (have I just coined a phrase there?) came numerous very sharp points that made me reconsider my attitude toward much of my life. The same can be said about Malcolm Duncan who was sharp and honest. The new National Leader showed from the start that he means business and that frightens me - which is a great thing!
There was a very healthy emphasis on prayer. The word emphasis doesn't do this justice. In past conferences, prayer was a sideline, a fringe event for extremists with zip-up Bibles and notepads the size of a small table. This time, prayer was everywhere.
This is how much this conference has changed; there was more emphasis placed on prayer than there was on money.
How awesome is that!? Oddly enough, the lack of emphasis on money made me happier to give money to the cause and wish I had more to give.
The content of the conference alone is enough to make up for anything bad that could be said about the event. It was astounding. Could it be better? I hope so else there's not much to look forward to next year, but this conference was such an enormous leap that I'm still catching my breath.
Did I mention that this was very good?
Amenities
So, the meat aside, let's look at some trivial, dare I say periphery issues. For example, the toilets. Yes, the toilets. These are the kind of toilet you daren't stay in for longer than five minutes else your clothes will stink of that blue radioactive goo they use to flush the things. Euch. Not nice and everyone outside can see your pants if you need to do a Number 2 (unless you're someone who keeps them around your knees and not ankles).
Food was good, if a little pricey - but you could always shop around for a bargain in the food tent. For example, Bacon Fries were 60p on one table but 50p on the other. Great, save some money and slap it into the collection basket (actually, it was more of a collection sick-bowl - I'm sure I've hurled chunks into a bowl like that before).
However you look at it, the food tent provided a handy meeting and eating place where you could browse some good books and get yourself a carved wooden angel (who came up with that idea!? Carved wooden angels that seem to have the same sentiment as Carebears - Here's Happy Angel, here's Comforting Angel, here's Special-Time-Of-The-Month Angel and here's Gardening Angel).
You just had to be careful if you sat in the eating area 'cause you could have gone flying head-over-heels on a floor that was about as flat as the Brecon Beacons.
There was also an underused creche facility. Underused because (rightfully) proud parents would (wrongly) rather block isles and exits with triple-buggy prams and bags of bottles so that everone can see the fruit of their loins, instead of making use of the actual creche and allow the rest of the conference get on with things without having to watch a brat puking up his flumps and flying saucers. However, I must provide disclosure here and say that I spent three services with my awesome nephews, right there in the tent, so go ahead and shoot me.
Location
I still do not understand why the Apostolic Church chose Swansea for the conference. Swansea is not central, is not accessible..... is not even nice. It was only called a city because the people there were jealous of Cardiff and if a city's biggest selling point is a fountain outside McDonald's, then you get the jist of Swansea (yes, I know, there's Rhosilli, Gower etc - but isn't it odd that all the best things about Swansea are outside of Swansea, where the people aren't?)
But, let it not be said that I never have anything good to say about Swansea - the parking for the conference was reasonable at £1.50 per day and you were within walking distance of the shops... and the fountain outside McDonald's. There is a beach, if you don't mind playing Super-Frogger in the four lanes of traffic, but take a plastic bag - you may want to clean a spot for yourself in the sand before you sit down (I was lucky, I found an old crate which kept my botty clear of the ground which makes the conference toilets look good enough to eat off).
Company
Some people say that your average Apostolic is like a Pharisee with the friendliness taken out. I think that's terribly unfair and the Pharisees weren't as bad as that. Yet, the sad truth is that the conference is geared toward people who are either in couples or in groups. There is no provision whatsoever for single, on-their-own, honest-to-goodness, lonely people. There's nothing at all to do in the day, unless you're in a group or you're a woman and the day starts with a Mon.
If you go to the morning service, you have a limited choice for what to do in the afternoon;
- Go home
- Walk into town (sorry, city)
- Stay in the food tent and look like a Billy-no-mates
- Sit in the main tent and practice your Christian-Jedi tricks
Conclusion
I wanted to start with the serious positives before moving onto the not-so-serious negatives because the positive is so positive, I found I really don't care about the negatives. In the past, I've felt that there wasn't enough positive to warrant enduring the negatives, but this time, things were different and, more importantly, by the end of the conference, I was different.
You see, looking at all the negatives I've written here, it sounds like I want to world to change to suit me. I did. But the bottom line is that rather than change the world to make me feel comfortable, God is in the business of changing me to make me stronger.
In the same way as I had to learn to deal with the negatives in order to appreciate the very real positives in this year's conference, I encourage anybody who's offended by this review to get over it.
;-)
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