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1st February 2008

Josie Loftus
31/ 1/2008

The other day, I laboriously had to wade my way through the mountain of post that I’d not opened since before Christmas.

Are you like me? Do you feel as I do that letters of demand are an unwelcome intrusion on your life and they stop you from moving onto doing better things with your time, energy and money not to mention the clutter they make of your worktop in your kitchen as well as the guilt trips that spring up in your consciousness just as you start thinking that life can’t get any better?

It's as though they (unopened envelopes) have a mission all of their own to deliberately make your life a total misery.

I don’t know what it is about them that makes them so conspicuous, no matter how much the companies who send them try to disguise them. But they ooze threat, dread and misery which is why I refuse to comply with their insatiable demands. I will not ever allow a folded up piece of paper to have such a control over my life as to reduce me to becoming an incompetent, disorganised useless mess that eventually has to comply.

So, yes you’ve guessed exactly right, the envelopes have finally won. Here I am with no less than four piles of demands from left to right in order of gravity ranging from dire down to those little nuisances that pee you off because at the end of the day, when you put it all into perspective, they’re all begging letters, aren’t they? They, want my money and I don’t want to give it to them because I haven’t got any.

My car insurance is up for renewal the first week in February and one thing I have learned by way of a very expensive lesson is to explore and shop around for the cheapest and go for it. I stuck with the same insurance company for years just like I’d stuck with the same utilities companies for years. I really was a very loyal customer to all of them until I found out I was paying out an astronomical amount of money by direct debit without realising how these companies rely on you not really noticing how much more your premiums go up each time you can’t be bothered to check the amount because you really don’t want the bother of shopping round and having to transfer all your details to a new company.

Twelve months ago I was incensed when I discovered my premiums were well over double, almost treble the amount I had originally agreed to pay for my motor insurance. I made a few ‘phone calls, sacked the old and employed a new company saving myself just over £400.

Going through my post I came across a form from my new insurance company for me to simply, sign and date the enclosed renewal application and the premiums will be automatically deducted by direct debit. I looked at the cost of the premiums and found they had gone up by 50 per cent. I remembered I’d opened a letter from the Post Office offering to provide inexpensive quotes. The voice on the other end of the ‘phone asked me all the usual well worn questions about my personal details and more mechanically than I care to admit By the time we’d got to him asking for the registration number I felt he was sounding a little more human and I was beginning to sympathise with him feeling a bit under the weather. I suggested he should try a Blob … honey, whisky and hot water … ‘works wonders’ I told him.

The nice young man then asked me how much my last car insurance had been: £375.00 for the year which had now gone up to £425.00 and I had no intention of falling for that sort of con again.

He asked me how many miles a year did I drive. Now, this threw me because I have absolutely no idea how long a mile looks or is and I told him so. ‘Approximately’ he nudged, trying to be helpful. I went into how I go to the supermarket down the road and maybe a few times a year I go to St Anne’s … and ...

‘Approximately …’ he continued nudgingly. For something better to say than I didn’t know I asked him if he thought twenty five miles a week sounded all right. I heard him tapping the information into a computer and then he very casually said ‘that’ll be … thirteen hundred'.

I couldn’t believe my ears. I told him in no uncertain term what I thought about the so called ‘offer’ and how he had wasted the last 20 or so minutes and what he could do with his quote. Then I banged the ‘phone down, stormed into the kitchen to recover the £425.00 quote from the bin. ‘Thirteen hundred pounds!’ was ridiculously gross and I wondered just how that company kept any customers with so many other companies offering much lower premiums.

The ‘phone rang just as I reached the kitchen … it was the thirteen hundred pound, young man and he was laughing. I was still reeling from the shock as he tried to explain (between burst of laughter) that the sum of thirteen hundred was the approximate yearly mileage based on the 25 miles per week I’d put to him just a few minutes before.

I could hear his colleagues in the background falling about laughing and I too was doubled up and going into hysterical mode as we both went over the sequence of the conversation. ‘You do know its recorded, don’t you’ he asked and explained how the call would probably be used for training purposes. ‘So long as it makes people laugh it's okay’ I said, and ended up laughing my way to the bank, so to speak after ‘the nice young man’ quoted £320.00 for fully comp insurance for the year.

I know last week I said to watch this space for information about joining a group concerning tree preservation. I’ve been unable to do this because our family has had bereavement. As always at times like this plans, arrangements and normality take second place. I’ll let you know about the tree preservation group when things settle down.

MO from HAWC (Help Adolescents with Cancer) has asked me to mention that there are tickets available for the charity’s fund raising ‘Ladies Night’ to be held at the Copthorne Hotel, Clippers Quay, Salford on Saturday 23 February at 7.30pm. There will be celebrity guest speakers, good food, dancing and music, a raffle and of course there is a bar. Tickets are £25 per person. Please try to help and support this worthy cause. For tickets phone 0161-688-6244.

SO many Golden Voices readers who remember me from school days, work places, social times, old Collyhurst life and just in passing have contacted me to reminisce and be nostalgic and there’s nothing I like better.

You have all said how we should get together and I couldn’t agree more. Why don’t we all have a big old fashioned reunion before time moves on any further? But where and when? Tommy Walsh, one of St Patrick’s old boys, is good at this sort of thing so I’ll get in touch with him and wait, also, to see what you think. Let me know.