Friday, 6 February 2015

Unintended consquences

For a period of some years towards the end of my stay in the world of work, worthy people were making an industry of the business of data protection. I went on quite a few courses on the subject, the content of which is more or less all forgotten now. A time when we worried about whether the secretaries of tennis clubs were making improper use of the names and addresses in their care.

And now, yesterday, when we had our electricity cut off - an engineering problem affecting the road in general rather than our having overlooked the bill - the French supply company refused to talk to BH on the grounds that she was not the account holder, which was a bit of a pain as I was out. This despite that fact that we have been living at the same address and using the same electricity company (give or taking flogging it off to the French) for getting on for thirty years and have been married for rather longer than that.

This at a time when lots of large companies are busily collecting up great swathes of information about me and my affairs, information over which I have little if any control.

All very odd.

PS: I can also confirm that gas central heating does not work when the electricity does not work. Unlike in the fifties, when the parental house had three independent sources of power - gas, coke and electricity. One could lose one or two of them without losing the one or two that were left. Perhaps more of a deal then, a time when power cuts and shortages were common.

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