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Wednesday 29 June 2011

Is it free or isn’t it? To me it reads exactly like a big fat lie. And other things that don't seem right

Why pay for Wi-FI when you can get it for free?” said the message that appeared on my screen. It was there because my connection with the BT Home Hub – God, how I hate these names – had vanished. God, how I hate BT.

It went on with more lick-your-own-arse bilge.

“BT Total Broadband provides you with a great broadband service in and out of the home. You'll become part of the award winning BTFON network and be able to use hundreds of thousands of Openzone and BTFON hotspots for free.”

Wow! The very apex of my ambition – to become part of their award-winning network. What part can I play? Can I be a humble plug? Or a sturdy cable? Or a little flashing light? Or a thingy that connects me to the wrong place? Or a tenth rate copywriter whose work is made even worse by a clueless marketing tosser?

For the thousandth time I ask myself: what moron writes this stuff or lets it out of the door?

Hang on, though, what is this I see? At the bottom it says “1 hour £3; 1 day £5; all the way up to £30 days £39”.

Is this free? I think not. What I do think is that the person who authorised this should be fined and then thrown out on the street. If it were a financial ad they would get hit for tens, maybe hundreds of thousands.

Other things that don't seem right to me on this sunny morning:

That public servants whose pay is on average higher than that of us who pay them and who have on average infinitely better pension provisions than us (who mostly have none) are going on strike.

That the boss of Nationwide Building Society gets paid a million a year and wants more. That the lowest paid of his fellow directors gets £800,000. I imagine there's pension provisions on top. And phoney payments specially devised to fatten their wodges even more.

Throw those grasping wretches out, too. What new idea did they ever come up with? They just crawled their way to the top of the heap. They're no better than the bankers - just haven't had the chance to screw it up as much.

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