Sue

Fingers crossed they do well!

I also recently waited 30 minutes to speak to someone at HMRC. First of all, they had indicated the wait time from the outset. Secondly, it is a very busy time for them, with the 31 January deadline looming. Thirdly, I might be confusing them with some other organisation, but I think they gave other options including for them to phone you back if you didn't want to hang on. Anyway, my main point is that I don't know whether the person I spoke to was working from home or not, but there was no background noise, she was incredibly sympathetic and helpful, and to my utter disbelief she extended the deadline for me to the end of March 😮 The reason was that I couldn't do my online return due to my laptop meltdown, and had been told repair could take up to 28 working days. She thought that a deadline of the end of February might not be long enough I was fully expecting to be told that it was my own fault for not getting the return in before. So credit where credit's due, basically. I've previously found HMRC staff very helpful in patiently explaining in simple language stuff in the rules which I couldn't understand. As for working from home, I'm long retired from working for others, but I have both on occasion worked well into the night/over weekends to meet critical project deadlines, and also on occasion skived. But in the first job I was being paid a lot, and in the second job I wasn't 🤣

I can't help with pinpointing the source of the bass, but I have found playing white noise helps to mask unwanted sounds, and it's also quite soothing (in a way). I ask Alexa to play white noise, which must make a nice change for her from asking what the temperature and/or weather is outside, or asking her to sing the Doggy Song, which is usually all she does (present from my brother). But probably you can get a white noise app on your phone. Have you contacted Southwark Noise Control (?) who may be able to trace where the bass is coming from?

I enjoyed reading your reviews! What are you going to do when you run out of local places to eat? Start at the beginning again?!

😮 That's completely unprofessional. I would have complained to HMRC.

Do you mean one spelling error?

I'm sorry to hear that it has closed, but Grove Vale wouldn't immediately spring to mind as the ideal location for a shop (?gallery?) solely selling ceramics. Plus you had to go in and ask to find out the price of anything, which was a bit off-putting (well, it put me off asking again after my first sharp intake of breath 🤣 ) Perhaps they overestimated the effect of gentrification?

Certainly it is necessary to put in place a very much better system of "ownership" and upkeep, if they are to be used for information about local non profit organisations. What do you mean by "try something else"? If for local businesses, that has already been discussed above. Quite apart from anything else, it would seem very odd to have commercial enterprises' adverts locked up behind glass in wooden frames!

Sorry if I offended you. I was trying to be helpful. I did not mean to imply you know nothing about WiFi, but I have found as I said that connecting away from home can sometimes be difficult, especially when travelling. On at least one occasion I found that the reason I couldn't connect to the WiFi was because I wasn't doing things correctly, and on other occasions the problem was with the Oxford Tube WiFi. If you can connect OK to free WiFi elsewhere, would that not seem to imply that the problem is specifically with the train and station WiFi? So either there is something wrong at their end, or (if other people can connect to it at a time when you can't) something wrong at your end, which could be the phone, but why would it connect to free WiFi at other places but not on trains? I don't have the name of a reputable phone shop, sorry. What I actually meant by that was that I would avoid shops like the many small phone shops in Peckham. I didn't particularly want to spell that out. I'm sure some of them are fine, but my daughter had a phone battery replaced at one, and it failed very shortly afterwards. Unless you have a recommendation for an independent phone shop from a reliable source, I would stick to the major high street phone shops? I am with iD. They have various ways to contact them, including online chat. I just had a look. You say you are classified as a vulnerable person, and their website says they have special provisions for vulnerable people? There is a link on their website to find out more. I'm not sure why you would not want to use those provisions if they might get you help more quickly? I imagine that is what they are there for? But to the best of my knowledge the WiFi problems you are having would have nothing to do with your phone call supplier? I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. I only asked the phone's age in case that was a contributing factor. If it's only 2 or 3 years old, then of course it shouldn't be. Yes I'm having problems with my laptop, but I'm not sure why that's relevant? I only bought it in May, it's still under guarantee, it developed a clear fault out of the blue, it's been a pain, and I'm very grateful to the local people who have helped. I never claimed to be any kind of technical expert, far far from it. I'm in my mid seventies and technology is a complete mystery to me 🤣 Anyway, again, I'm sorry if you were offended by anything I said, and I hope you will get things sorted out soon. Just noticed you said you have "regular scams" as well. I think we all get those, at least I do! You should be able to report the phone number as spam and also block the number (and similarly for emails) however sadly I think it's pretty impossible to get rid of them altogether. I save the number in my contacts as spam, so if it should get through again it comes up marked as spam, and I just don't answer it. If I get a call from a number I don't recognise I do usually answer it, as sometimes it's a genuine call, but if it's spam I just tell them to eff off (except I don't say eff) and then block the number.

Have you talked to iD? I've been with them for ages and have never had any problems. They run on 3's network. But the WiFi isn't anything to do with your phone call provider, is it? Have you tried asking a (reputable) phone shop which isn't just Apple? How old is the iPhone? Not being funny, but if it's just train WiFi you have issues with, are you sure you are going through the correct process to connect with it on your phone? I use the Oxford Tube (aka bus) WiFi quite a lot, and it can be confusing, plus they actually say that the connection may sometimes be iffy, depending on circumstances. That is down to their WiFi, not your phone. Could the same be happening on the trains?

Thanks!

Thanks Spartacus! I'd have to come out of safe mode to do this, wouldn't I? Where do I find System Restore, to click on it? When you say at the end to open the System Protection tab, what then? And where would I look to see if I have recovery switched on? Sorry for so many questions! I'm really grateful to the friend who got me this far, and I'm terrified of now doing something which could undo all his hard work!

The person who started the previous thread I linked to said they were Greek, so I presume would be well aware of cultural nuances. The absolute kindest thing I can think of is that whoever started the shop (and I believe there are several shops) was not aware of the meaning of the name. But surely you would not just pluck a name for a new business out of the air? Surely you would make sure it did not have any possible negative connotations, in any language? Has anybody actually asked the shop about this? As regards this "vegan hot chocolate", I'm bemused. The chocolate powder itself was surely just cocoa and sugar? It doesn't normally have any animal related products in it, does it? So it must have been the milk which made it "vegan", so probably either oat milk or soya milk? I regularly make hot chocolate with oat milk, and occasionally have it when out. It has never occurred to me to call it "vegan" (I'm not a vegan), and I've never seen it described as "vegan". When I'm out I just ask for hot chocolate with oat milk. It obviously doesn't taste the same as when made with cow's milk, but I prefer the taste. I don't particularly like drinks made with soya milk, which in any case curdles in certain hot drinks, but most places give you a choice of milk?

Good news! A friend with techie knowledge was able to get into the laptop (not physically) and I've now saved the recent unbacked up data onto an external hard drive (and I won't be making that mistake again). Remarkably, whatever he did caused the screen to spring back to life, and I can actually now do things on the laptop. However it is in safe mode, and my friend said not to take it out of safe mode or turn it off, in case I can't get back into it again. Because I don't know what the problem was in the first place which caused the sudden total and persistent screen blackout, I am worried that the same thing may happen again. I phoned Which Tech, as they will now be able to connect to it remotely as they will be able to see the screen, but they don't have an appointment for a week. I also phoned John Lewis again, but they still rabbited on about a factory reset always being "highly recommended" 🙄 presumably because that's what wherever they send laptops to be repaired always does first. Is there any easy way (without potentially making things worse again) to look into the laptop history to identify what happened last Monday around 3pm?!

They were never intended for commercial use. If they were to be used by small businesses, who would decide which of the many such businesses round here could use them? And what would be the criteria? And would those businesses then have precedence over the non profit organisations who wanted to use them? What has East Dulwich become, if that is the case? ETA: There has been a great deal of editing on this thread, and removal of whole posts, or large parts of them. Plus in at least one case, the editing seems to have resulted in a question being asked of one person being answered by another person as if the question had been directed at them. This is all making things very confusing. If you can't stand by what you have posted, maybe think twice before posting it in the first place? I could understand this happening occasionally, but there have been several incidents recently, and it seems a bit pointless trying to have a discussion on what is supposed to be a forum if people just go back and remove the posts which other people are responding to, with no explanation?

The thread I linked to above explains the background, and that the cake was apparently named AFTER the shop was named. Arapina is a racist slur in Greek, and was not originally the name for a cake (let alone a chocolate cake, if that is what the cake in question is. If that is indeed the case, my reaction is unprintable but starts with WTF 😮)

Jellybeanz has edited their long post which included their negative assumptions about you. Luckily for them, nobody had actually quoted some of Jellybeanz' posts on here in their own posts, and they have edited more than one of them, so they have disappeared for ever.

Pleased to see that the original very long and very negative post starting this thread has been edited down to one sentence 😂

Something you have to pay for isn't actually a "blog", is it?

Oh come on jazzer, it was funny. It amused me, anyway 😃

Might you be better just buying a new microwave?! 😀

Someone is going to have a look at it for me who thinks there is something else he can try to boot it up and at least diagnose the problem and get the recent data off without removing any screws, thanks. I had already had a long conversation with someone from Which Tech who seemed to know what he was talking about, before I took it up to John Lewis.

Sadly neither the F1 nor the enter key worked. Still a black screen. I tried both several times. And the red facial recognition light which used to flash at the top of the screen doesn't come on any more either (it was previously, even with the black screen). I think I've probably reached the end of the road with what I can try without physically going inside the laptop? Thanks so much for your help though, it's much appreciated.

It's a bit of a faff to sign up to it 🙄

I had what was at the time the worst meal of my life there. Superseded (sp?) by another one locally the Christmas just gone, but that's another sad and much worse saga.