Given that in recent weeks there has been things so foul and horrible coming up in the mainstream media, it’s nice to write about something which is completely missing the point of it all and instead smell badly of first world problems. But then again, most people wouldn’t want to read yet more from a rambling buffoon about the state of the world and some of the people in it.

Donald Trump. And Donald Trump’s Hair, which probably has yet to annoy the world as much as he does.

Then again, Donald Trump today came out wanting to ban all Muslims from America in an attempt to look even more brain damaged than he already appears to be, so I guess there is a place for rambling buffoons after all. This is probably where I get sued for defamation, but hell there has to be more than enough evidence to back up that statement by now surely?

So to move along from the impending lawsuit, let me instead tell a tale of something which in the grand scheme of things matters not one bit, but in some silly ways may actually restore a slight amount of faith when it comes to dealing with the powers that be.

Now all of you who read this epic tome of silliness from time to time (all three of you) know that I’ve not had the best of luck when it comes to seeking high speed broadband.

The last time I wrote about the subject, BT had all but given up and I ended up on a business package paying way over the odds for a service which was poor in comparison to something I could get by moving over to the next street. It’s been alright but try to do anything most take for granted like watch a HD video at night from Netflix, and you may have trouble doing so.

Now, instead of giving up in tried and true British fashion, sighing while making a cup of tea, what would you think I would do next to shine a light on the situation of having no real options to get an equivalent service that my cable and fibre enabled brothers and sisters enjoy on a regular basis, aside from spending well over £200 a month for a leased line connection which there is no way on earth I could ever afford.

I wrote to my local MP.

I’m not kidding.

Basically if you say you local MP’s name three times like Beetlejuice, they will appear.

The chap’s name in question is one Mr. Andy Slaughter, who you may recall, I even took the time to scan in his leaflet for the General Meh-lection which took place this year and proceeded to mock it along with every other campaign leaflet which got passed through the letterbox at the time. Given that the chap was elected and is there for us minions to call upon in times of great peril or whatever, I decided to sit down and write to Mr. Slaughter after asking for his contact details on Twitter;

@lordofleisure Do you mind emailing me full details? Thanks. https://t.co/bZ8miuFPiG

— Andy Slaughter MP (@hammersmithandy) November 5, 2015

And so I did about the lack of fibre broadband in Shepherds Bush, fully not expecting any response given how trivial the issue may be compared to the bigger issues at play in the UK at the time (this was pre Paris tragedy and Syrian Air Strike vote.). But you know what….. I got a response. A good one in fact;

Thank you for your email and for sharing your concerns with me about the lack of availability of fibre broadband in the borough.

I am well aware of this issue and I have exchanged substantial correspondence with BT regarding this problem. It is clearly ridiculous that there are large areas of central London which do not receive fibre broadband when areas a diverse as Grassington, population 1,000, and Guberwick, Shetland, population 400 receive high speed broadband. I therefore fully appreciate your frustration at the fact that you cannot access fibre broadband in Shepherds Bush.

Given that this issue has been going on for quite some time now, I will make a formal enquiry to BT on your behalf, in order to raise this matter with them and request an explanation for why fibre broadband is still not available in certain areas of the borough.

In the meantime, you may wish to contact your local councillors about this as well. You have three local councillors in your ward – Rory Vaughan, Lisa Homan and Caroline Needham. You can contact them using the following email addresses:

(email addresses removed from this quote to stop spammers)

I will be in touch with you again once I receive a response from BT. In the meantime, should you require further assistance with this matter, you may wish to write to me again and I will give what help I can.

Yours sincerely,

Andy Slaughter
Labour MP for Hammersmith

I was astonished beyond words. The next day, I had a phone call from BT who wanted to talk to me about this issue, it having been raised by Mr Slaughter. Again words were failing me at that point. I even then went onto write to the local councilors as suggested and again…. I got a response!

Dear Mr Hughes

Further to my previous email.  I have now had an update from officers and understand that BT has advised the Council that it will be announcing a significant investment in fibre broadband which will result in 90% of premises in the Borough able to access it.  However we do not know the timescales for the  roll out of this yet.

You are right in saying that the Council entered into a deal with a fibre provider.  This allows it to use the Council’s underground ducting network for the installation of fibre.  However the company is a wholesale operation so it does not provide broadband directly to domestic properties and as far as I understand is not an alternative to the BT roll out, as they will install fibre according to commercial demand for the service and the Council cannot unfortunately direct them to install fibres in any particular area.

I hope this this helpful and I will endeavour to keep you updated on this matter.

Best Regards

Lisa

Cllr Lisa Homan

Askew Ward

Cabinet Member for Housing LB Hammersmith & Fulham

Sadly words have since come rather easy to say again, as BT for reasons unknown, have failed to ring back regarding any of this, which again just illustrates their lack of any customer focus whatsoever. It’s remarkable and amazing though I had far more of a response from the government about this than the actual firm which are supposed to be providing the service! I suppose we wait and see what happens next, but perhaps in a way, this does go to show one thing.

If something is bothering you where the local government may have something to say about things and a private company contracted to fulfill their part of the public bargain fails, give them a mail and see what happens. You may actually get a response which may be encouraging after all.

Perhaps it tells us another thing come to think of it; You may just get further proof BT are useless and not even the government can do anything about them. Maybe the next mail to be sent about this should be to Donald Trump’s hair….