wendy house

Due to temporary failure of satelite connections the BBC announced that they were sorry for the interuption in our reception of thier programming.

In my day the BBC used a collection of strangely engaging short media clips to entertain viewers during program interruption,   called ‘interludes’, accompanied by classical music.   These media clips included watching a potter potting,   a spinner spinning (wool,   not exercise) and the slightly more cute kitten-playing:

…interrupting you,   BUT….

the interrupter took the conversation winding off into outer space until a silence when my the interesting,   passionate monologue came to its a gentle landing, end.

Beyond the words ‘I’m sorry’ my interrupter demonstrated no ‘sorriness’.   Quite the contrary.   Perhaps ‘sorry’ in this context actually means:

 ’please don’t get angry with me for taking conversation to a monologue,   to another topic,  but I have a really interesting thought that I’m bursting to share and I’m sure everyonelse will find it as interesting as I do’

After the silence my interrupter turned to me acknowledging the end of the interruption and encouraging me to finish my original question.

Delivering apologies is a local (English)  fine-art form.   The 90 second video above was  filmed exclusively by the Wendy House Audio-wideo Team (WHAT!)  before the arrival of Thomas (soppy SIGH).     It includes a First Great Western (FGW) Reading platform announcer delivering  ordinary apologies followed by the first of what turned out to be multiple extreme aoplogies.   Lisen for the stylish use of a contemporary xylophone solo ‘bing-bong-BING’ .   I had literally hours of fun that morning on Reading train station.

Well done FGW,   a fine example of extreme apologies.

According to  the Gaurdian:

Former HBOS chief executive Andy Hornby, who is receiving £60,000 a month as a consultant to the Lloyds Banking Group, issued a “full apology”.

Merium Webster suggests there are three distinct meanings of apologies  without citing whether they are empty,   half-empty, half-full or full:

1. a formal justification
   1. defense
   2. excuse
2. an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret
3. a poor substitute : makeshift  

I wonder how the RBS, Lloyds group and HBOS  banking executives meant their apologies  to the tax paying people while they arranged

• executive bonuses on top of annual salaries ( £4 million)  that are so far beyond my comprehension  even stilton can’t produce them.
• employee  job cuts.  

The  same tax paying  people are

• suffering job losses due to the  irresponsibility of banking processes.
• paying outlandish banking executive salaries and bonuses.    

Maybe a full apology is a composite of all 3 meanings,   including defense, excuse, admission of error and a poor substitute for genuine humility.

 I explain my computer problem to IT Support   Guy (SG) and ask if the two separate support teams dealing with my problem can talk to each other directly, rather than use me as a tennis ball, sort my problem out then contact me when its fixed.     Support guy is unsure and needs to investigate whether this is possible.

8 minutes of twangy music later:

SG:   I’m sorry for having left you on hold for over 2 minutes, I’m going to have to put you on hold for another couple of minutes, can you put me on speaker phone?

Wendy: I’m in an open plan office, the people near me might not like the twangy music.  

8 minutes of twangy music later:

SG:   I’m sorry for keeping you on hold so long, I’m  going to have to escalate this to tier 2 support, hang on a while…

8 minutes of listening to typing on the phone later:

SG:   I have escalated this to Tier 2 they will phone you later

About 15 minutes later tier-2 phoned me to tell me the problem was fixed.  

Hoorah,   no twangy music, no hold, no extra questions.   I like tier-2.

Apologies are used in a subtly different way here in the UK than   in the NW  US.   This bus uses a lively exclamation mark.   It feels  more like a cheerful announcement than  a humble  seeking of forgiveness.   I don’t recall the word sorry used in this cheerful way as frequently in the NW US  as in the UK.

The lift (US: elevator) arrived, doors opened, the lighted arrow pointed upward.   Like servers we wanted to go down.   We waited.   After about 30 second the doors closed then to our suprise promptly opened again.   As  the doors opened the lighted arrow shifted from pointing up to down.   I giggled as we walked into the lift.   The arrow and lift couldn’t change direction until the doors had opened and closed?   That is funny.

Here’s a sweetly apologetic printed note on a malfunctioning car-park lift in the UK,   with useful information hand-written afterwards:

W easily-amused.

UK Vacation 2

Temporary paper signs are often used to show when something is not working. They seem to come with HIGHLIGHTED apologies. These paper signs are ‘updated’ by helpful people. In the lift (elevator) someone has hand written directions to a working lift around the corner. We ignored the sign and discovered the lift was actually working…

The sign about “not entering the water‘ just tickled my sense of humour. I’d never thought of ‘entering‘ or ‘exiting’ water before. Describing the water as “not suitable for any other purpose” also made me wonder what people used it for, surely it has an aesthetic purpose? And where’s the harm in a playful summer water-fight? If its not suitable for anything then why is it there? Or is aesthetic not a valid public ‘purpose’? This municipal, metal, sign also had spikes on the lampost above it. Do they have problems with people climbing the lampost? why is that a problem to be deterred? Lampost climbing seems like a difficult, skillful and healthy activity. Maybe the spikes are some form of aesthetic that I haven’t yet learned to appreciate. I was mildly baffled by this. I suspect I will spend most of my life being mildly baffled by social engineering

“Pay on foot” also took a while to understand, as I looked around for a foot to pay…