Jacey Bedford's Journal

...DHL

A couple of weeks ago I had two work permits that I needed to get to Texas in a hurry for incoming performers. The package didn't need to be sent overnight, but as I only had about ten days before they flew to the UK I thought I'd be on the safe side. I didn't want to risk air mail post which says it can take three to five days, but can be longer - especially when the recipient lives a long way from anywhere - i.e my guys in Texas. So I booked DHL to courier the envelope at a cost of thirty-some pounds.

When it didn't arrive at the other end the recipients did some digging. It turns out that DHL don't deliver to that part of Texas, so having couriered my package from Yorkshire to the USA.... they posted it.

Let me say that again...

They frigging POSTED it!!!!!!

And my guys, having sussed it out managed to collect their work permits from the post office on their way to the airport. It was THAT close.

Sheesh!

Ths morning I received a letter from ParcelForce Worldwide, delivered via Royal Mail. They are holding a parcel for me whch they cannot deliver and I can either pay £5.50 for the privilege of them bringing it out to me or £1 for them to deliver to a local post office or - for free - I can collect it from their depot. There's a phone number and I can pay by credit card over the phone if I wish. Or there's a returns slip which I can fill in and send back by post with a cheque. There's also a store number to locate and ID the parcel, but there's no tracking number for the parcel.

OK, so far so good, BUT:

1) Our house is rarely unattended because both Best Beloved and I work from home and my mum is next door, close enough to hear our doorbell. So though it's not completely impossible, it is most unlikely if they have been trying to deliver to the correct house, that we were not available to take delivery.

2) The telephone number printed in their letter is incorrect so when you try to dial, the phone number is not recognised.

3) The letter should clearly have been printed on letterhead paper but it has been printed on plain paper, so there is no return address and no indication as to which ParcelForce depot it has been sent from.

4) There is no return address on the return slip that I'm suposed to send back with my cheque.

5) If I wish to collect it from the depot there's no indication of where in the world that is.

0/10 to ParcelForce, unless of course it was their intention to completely frustrate their customers and make themselves appear to be totally  incompetent in the process, in which case 12/10 and a gold star. I wonder how much Christmas bonus their CEO will be getting this year?

After much searching on the net and a long phone call (in an interminable 'holding' queue) with their national customer services, the girl at the other end and I eventually determine that a) the depot is in Leeds (so only a 90 minute round trip for me to collect whatever it is that I'm not expecting) and b) they have a standard printed letter which they send out to (I presume) lots of customers which has a zero missing from the phone number (08708 instead of 087008) and that c) someone in their organisation (if I can use the word) needs a rocket.

Armed with the correct telephone number I eventually get through to Leeds to a very nice man called Ian who sounds as though he knows what he's talking about. No he can't tell me who sent the package but it has come from the USA (so probably a musician sending CDs, then) and he offers to send out my parcel again for free. I should jolly well hope so.

But get this. The package is apparently addressed to me at number 9 (my mum's address, next door) yet the letter to ask what I wish to do about delivery has been sent to me at my correct address, number 10. Go figure!

No this is not a movie review, this is a review of the place where I went to see a movie. The movie? Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Movie review? Mostly harmless - a bit of cinematic froth which would have been better NOT in 3-D, especially on the Indiana Jones-style mine-car roller-coaster ride (coming to a theme park near you, possibly).

We had the unfortunate experience of picking a movie that started just ten minutes before the Mama Mia movie and for the first time in many years there was a queue stretching out of the cinema door and across the front of the building. This would have been fine except... Mama Mia had already sold out, but no one in Cineworld had the sense to a) tell the queue and b) set up a separate non-time sensitive queue where the Mama Mia folks could buy tickets for the next showing in two hours time and c) pull all those of us with impending film start times into an express line and GET THINGS MOVING.

How much ingenuity would it have taken?

In the end we politely asked if we could jump the queue in front of the four twinset and pearls ladies who were determined to buy tickets for the eight o'clock showing of Mama Mia and if we hadn't we'd have missed our movie start. it was that close.

We missed the ads (which is a Good Thing) missed the trailers (which is a Bad Thing) and finally made our way into an almost empty cinema auditorium literally about fifteen seconds before the movie started.