In which several incompetent bandits are exposed

It could easily be argued that one of the main advantages conferred by this blog on mankind is its habit of exposing incompetent bandits wherever they may be, and it is with this in mind that I tell you of a well-known car dealership, which we shall call Harles Churst.

I must begin by introducing those of you who don't already know them to Alex, my colleague, and Bluebelle, her car. Alex and Bluebelle have enjoyed a companionable relationship for almost 2 years now, so you can imagine Alex's distress when Bluebelle developed an injury (known in the car business as a 'fault') and required treatment ('fixing'). So Alex took her car to Harles Churst, where she was assured that it would only take a day to remedy.

This seemed good, so Bluebelle was left there for the day. This was last Monday. Not Monday past, the Monday before, 10 days ago. Bluebelle has not been seen since.

Bluebelle has need of a bonnet clip... thing.. (sorry, we've reached the cliff-edge of my technical knowledge here) - not, you would imagine, one of the more difficult-to-fix things that could happen a car, but Bluebelle even now remains clipless. Alex has, of course, been calling every day, to try to retrieve her (repaired) car from Harles Churst, and has had a range of 'explanations' for it's continued state of non-fixedness. These have included them sending the right clip for the wrong car, the wrong clip for the right car, and, on one spectacularly successless day, no clips at all. Naturally they blame, among other things, the postal strike (but really, what on earth are they doing sending car parts with Royal Mail? 'Tis all well and good till someone needs an exhaust) and having to get the part from France (seriously, they could've got it from Mars in less time, including designing the rocket from scratch).

So, anyway, Alex, having temporarily given up on trying to hurry up the fixing of the car and turned instead to trying to at least aquire some form of compensation (having had to hire a car every day) phoned the Renault UK people, and spoke to a chap called Joe Hisock (seriously) who said they have a policy of not compensating mistakes. Which is handy. In fact, she has spoken to Joe every day, since there appears to be no one else there who is fit to speak to customers (leading us to assume that the rest of the workforce consists of trained gorillas or something); he gave a glimmer of hope on Day 4 by saying that they would compensate the cost of the hire car, but then dashed it this morning by saying they would not.

Naturally, the only other person involved (Neil) is very nice, which means it's not possible to shout at him.

I will keep you updated, but for now we must press on, because there's a lot to get through today.

So, Q&B phoned this morning, to check that the cupboard doors have been delivered. Point number 1, no they haven't. Point number 2, nor were they supposed to be; they were meant to arrive with the man who was going to fit them. Point number 3, I actually don't really want them yet, owing to the ongoing building work, of which more now.

The building work. So they came today, smoked in my living room, ate some lunch at my living room table, and then demonstrated a delightfully unconventional approach to the prioritising of tasks by plastering the bit of ceiling around the skylight. Not, you will note, by doing anything about the bathroom (which, if you remember, presently consists of a toilet with no cistern, and a bucket). They seem to like plastering; it is pretty much all they have done for the past fortnight. I wouldn't mind (after all, it keeps them occupied), but all my rooms are gradually getting smaller, layer by layer, and soon it won't be possible to fit visitors in unless I go out first, which rather defeats the point of having visitors. Also, for some bizarre reason, which I really haven't fathomed at all thus far, they are systematically removing all my lightbulbs; the current score is 5 remaining and 3 missing, with the rest having been disconnected or not yet installed.

So tomorrow I am going to set my father on them, and see what happens. If that doesn't work, I will send my mother, and if even that doesn't get a bit of action, I may have to take drastic action. Maybe if I suck up to Renault Joe he'll lend me a gorilla.