Fibre Optic

This post is aimed at anyone living in London, anyone frustrated by perpetual roadworks and anyone who doesn't like to see large amounts of money shoved in a hole and burned. About a month ago, I made a call. Here is is, more or less verbatim, plus a few extra jokes for me, writer's privilege.

SALESPERSON: Thank you for calling Virgin Media. How we can help?

JK: I'm interested in getting fibre optic broadband.

He checked my postcode, only to say... 

SALESPERSON: I'm sorry but we don't offer broadband in your area. 

JK: Why not?

SALESPERSON: It's too expensive to put the cables in. 

JK: Really, that seems odd.  I live in Westminster, on a well-off street with a population density about the same as Hong Kong. 

SALESPERSON: Sorry, there's no plans for your street. 

JK:  Come on. People round here will pay £5 for a tiny portion of cake from rip-off merchants Baker & Spice. There's one shop where they charge £150 for a cushion. You could charge them whatever you liked for a fibre optic connection, especially if you said it was organic.

SALESPERSON: It just don't make sense for us. 

JK: What about when they dug the street up for two years to replace the water mains, why didn't you put the cables in then? We had total traffic chaos, at least you could have taken advantage. 

SALESPERSON: Yeah, maybe someone should have thought of that. 

'Maybe someone should have thought of that'. Those seven words say it all. Yes, maybe one of the overpaid executives at BT, Talk Talk, Virgin Media to name but a few, should have thought of that. Maybe a council leader could have thought have that; maybe Boris Johnson should have thought of that.

'Maybe someone should have thought of that'. That's the UK's motto for 2012.