Sorry it’s a bit late folks but BT emailed me to say my contract with them was coming to an end and the new contract would be different to the old one. I no longer get free phone calls on my landline I must go on ‘pay as you go’ and the broadband is moving to part fiber and part copper wire. We can still receive free incoming calls though.
All for the knock down price of 66 quid per month plus phone calls… 
There were some other benefits…
Anyway, usual Friday stuff done like a walk down the towpath and a bowl of porridge.
Going to give the car a birthday and clean it out, I did the outside yesterday…Just watch it rain later… 
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Hey Foxy…no one is late on this forum, we come and go as we please 
Don’t get me started on contracts for internet and landlines however 
I’m adamant when it comes to keeping a landline, belt and braces me!
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Afternoon – where is Bruce? Hope he is OK
Well done OGF for standing in for him.
I’m with you Chilliboot – I still have my landline, although the only person who rings me on it is my brother – don’t even get scam callers these days, although I do use it to make the occasional call.
Went out for dinner with my neighbours again last night. We did almost fall out when we started arguing over the bill! They always insist as they invited me then they should pay, I always insist that I enjoy their company and should pay my share. They finally agreed when I said if they didn’t let me pay I wouldn’t join them for a night out again!
They were due to go away for a long weekend today but they rang this morning to say one of them is feeling unwell and doesn’t feel up to the drive to the Mumbles. That means I won’t be the cat’s servant for the weekend!
All I have done so far today is a supermarket shop – I actually had to ask a young man to reach something on a top shelf for me – that made me feel old!
Take care – enjoy the rest of the day
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We haven’t used BT for a long time. We did use Virgin Media but now it is O2. In frequently, My dear wife uses her iPhone.
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Loved your post. I would have also said the same thing while debating who is paying for dinner… lol.
Also the things that remind me daily that im getting old are increasing. And as they do i always think back to a day in February …1981 i believe…
Hope November is great for you Shelia
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I was raised to pay my own way and would hate anyone to think that I was a freeloader - even when I have work done on my house I invariable pay the bill within 24 hours of receiving it!
Hope you have a great month too!
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Thanks Chilli and Sheila, I just felt a bit bad for not noticing earlier that Bruce had not started the thread. I hope he is alright and all is well with him. I think they are a bit in front of us down under.
Yes I think a landline is ideal for a good nag Chilli, and we were on a 700 minutes of free calls to other landlines and mobiles. That’s over 11 hours each month, I don’t think even Mrs Fox can talk as long as that…
Anyway I’ve just spoke to nice Scottish bloke who says we can still have that for a tenner extra…
Besoeker, I started off with Virgin broadband until they asked me to leave…(not because I was a grumpy old bugger).
Apparently they were shedding all those customers who didn’t have cable so I switched to BT.
It caused me much aggravation not able to use the virgin email address I had for several years. So now all my emails are google so if I sack BT at least I’ll still have the same email address. Apart from costing me a kings ransom, I’ve never had any bother with BT.
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Good afternoon from ever-under-construciton Florida!
While we miss Bruce waking us up every day, it was a pleasure to see the photos from his Sydney visit. I hope he has an enjoyable visit with his son and a safe return.
Right after a light and easy run, I grabbed the orbital sander and went to work on the balcony railings that are in need of sprucing up. With all the humidity we have here, the prep work is absolutely essential to avoid peeling paint and oxidating nails peeking through. I figure that I have about three days of sanding and filling before the painting begins.
The countdown to our presidential election on Tuesday has us drowning in advertisements, commercials, and exts from candidates. The constant onslaught of propaganda will not be missed, and I do hope we can get this country back to more civility when this is over. I have a really good bottle of champagne chilling 
and the flag ready to fly - not for the outcome (necessarily) but in appreciation for the Founding Fathers who brilliantly knitted this system together. Elections are like birth…you wait a long time, go through a lot of discomfort, do what you have to do - hope that the baby is not too ugly 
.
@OGF, when we bought this house twelve years ago, I remember shrugging when everyone (my parents most especially) thought I was nuts for choosing not to install a landline. I haven’t missed it once and it’s saved us a bunch by not duplicating services. I sure don’t miss the ring during the dinner hour.
Alrighty I have finished up some unhealthy yogurt and am back to the literal grind stone.
Have a nice start to the weekend!
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Thank god for OGF!
I don’t know what happened yesterday, the excitement of being back home made me completely forget about the Good Morning thread. (that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it)
It was a lovely sunny day too on and off though occasionally it looked like rain but that never happened until it was dark when I did hear some on the roof.
Spent some time measuring the wheel alignment of my camper which still seems to be wrong, I am going to have to jack it up again and redo it. It must have been miles out before.
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You must be able to do better than that surely?
£66 a month = $132. We whinge about rip off Australia but my total (full fibre) internet + mobile phone is a few cents under $100 (£50/month) and includes all calls/texts including international calls and texts. That’s with different companies.
Shop around…
I think you guys over the pond were a bit more advanced than us Surfer. Apart from a basic clamshell mobile phone (that just did the rudimentaries) for my courier business back the 2000’s I didn’t possess a smartphone until this year…Our landline was installed in 1983 and served us well over the years…
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None of my kids have ever had a landline. I held onto mine for far too long because it was free with my internet. I suppose in reality I actually still have it but there is no phone connected to it.
Even when the landline was connected I never received or made calls on it, the only incoming calls were scams and charities, hence its demise.
You can blame BT for the backward nature of British Telecommunications, I could not believe how difficult it was when I visited to get a data only SIM as I trailed from phone shop to phone shop. In the end I gave up and bought a phone SIM with data and the warning from the shop that I might be cut off if they notice I am only using data.
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No I wasn’t blaming BT Bruce, it’s just that before 1983 the only people to have a phone were the local district nurse who happened to live next door, so in an emergency I’d ring them.
This is Yorkshire you know…We didn’t have electricity until the sixties…
The district nurse actually brought me into this world when I was breach born at home. A good job she did as I wouldn’t be here today…Hurrah! I hear you say… 
When we did eventually get a Landline it was used extensively by both me and Mrs Fox right up to the last few years when mobiles became more reliable.
We still use it today for the more important stuff, like chasing up appointments and having a nag to long lost friends. It’s a lot more comfortable and reliable than the mobiles, and you don’t have to worry about the battery running out (unless it’s the walkabout one) And all the calls are free, even to mobiles. I pay a line rental for broadband anyway, so the phone is just an add on for a few extra quid, although all that might end soon as they have been busy all over the village laying new fiber cables underground and up the poles terminating in a new box. I have been informed that we will soon be on ‘Part Fiber’ so the boxes must convert the optical signal back to electrical signal at the pole. The short length of copper wire to each house can be changed to fiber for no extra cost, but as superfast broadband is not really required by me, I aren’t bothered just yet. Other than this laptop and keeping the family happy when they visit I don’t use the internet for anything else.
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How lovely! Whenever a sunset is blue and pink like that, I imagine the babies who were born that day and what incredible things have come together to make sunests and life possible.
Thank you kindly, Surfermom. Its just a hobby of mine. And I travelled ,
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You should, they kept equipment in service long after its use by date and slowed the development of a modern British telecommunications system for years if not decades.
I was shocked when I first came to Australia in the 60s, every home had a phone whereas in the UK it was something like 1 in 10 and they were shared service (ie two phones per pair of wires).
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