Posts from — January 2008

*(apologies to JonnyB)

It is quarter to one in the morning and I am woken by the noise.

Me: Hello.

Man: Mr Jones, hello, my name is Raj, I’m calling from Netgear about your wireless router.

He sounds like a nice enough guy. He has a strong Indian accent and he’s chirpy, so I’m guessing it’s not quarter to bastard one in the morning where he is.

Me: What?

Man: My name is Raj and I am calling to ask about your broadband router modem.

Me: One second.

I get out of bed and walk downstairs to speak to him and ask at what they are playing.

Me: Why are you calling?

Man: We have your call logged as an unresolved issue and we were wondering if you were able to get back online and if your modem was working.

Me: That was like three weeks ago.

Man: It’s a courtesy call for the service of all Netgear customers, Mr. Jones.

Me: No, I mean now. Why are you calling at 1245 in the morning?

There is a half-empty silence, which contains the sound “Mist…”, then the rest of the pause.

Man: I am very sorry about this.

Me: It’s working fine and you said it was an ISP problem anyway, which I went on to fix. But you’re calling me in the middle of the night, three weeks later.

Man: I’m very sorry, Mr. Jones. So are you able to get online?

It’s not his fault, I tell myself. He has a lot of numbers to call and he’s doing his job. His manager will probably get angry at him if I complain about him personally. Best thing is to send an email to Netgear in the UK and US and let them know what I think of their flexible methods of serving a global market (or outsourced cost-cutting methods?). Or better still, write about it and send this post to them and mention “Netgear customer service review complaints call centre India broken wireless modem router“.

Me: Yes it’s working. But don’t ever call your customers in the middle of the night.

Man: Thank you for choosing Netgear, Mr. Jones.

—
Dear Sir/Madam,

I have written a review of Netgear’s customer service on my website and would be interested in your response.

If you are going to outsource your technical support, they should operate within UK hours and not those where you have outsourced your labour.

I enclose a link to the post and I await for your reply. The page is now live and I will of course print your reply for our readers.

Regards,

Cliff Jones

Read Netgear’s response
The Telephone Rings – Part 2

What writes novels but won’t use a phone or electricity?

Martin Amish

—
Dear God
Shrink Joke
Sunday Crap Joke Alert
Inexcusably Poor Taste Joke

Not much time today, so I wanted to share this, again by the brilliant Kevin Kling.

Don’t get discouraged by any perceived religious aspect - it’s a hilarious and beautiful story, so please grab yourself five minutes and a pair of headphones and make the rest of your day different.

And thank you.

Me: Daughter, can you please pass the pencil from on top of that box?

Daughter, 5: Um… which box?

Me: That one there with the pencil on it.

Daughter, 5: OK!

Welcome back and we’re going to the kitchens now to learn how to make perfect bagels. And they’re really easy to do, aren’t they, Cliff?

Yes, that’s right. Even if you’ve never baked bread and you don’t have a set of kitchen scales, you can bake perfect bagels if you have about half an hour to spare.

Half an hour? That’s great. Can I do it?

You sure can, Cliff, and we’re going to do it right here on the show.

Well, all right. You guys ready to cook some bagels? Let’s do it.

Ingredients
1 1/8 cups warm water (just above room temperature)
1 tbs vegetable oil
2 tbs malt syrup, molasses, or sugar (you can substitute maple syrup or honey if you like, but you’ll taste it. But go for it if you like.)
1 tsp salt
3 1/3 cup bread (or strong) flour
2tsp active dry yeast

Make your dough
a) If you have a mixer with a dough hook
Mix the water, syrup (or sugar or whatever your sweet thing is) and the yeast and let the liquid mixture stand for five minutes, then and add half the flour and all the other dry ingredients. Turn on the mixer for about a minute, then add the remaining flour until you have a ball. If it’s too dry, add more water a tablespoon at a time. The dough hook will do the kneading in about five minutes. Give it a three minutes on slow and about two on half speed to knock it about. If you’re using fast-acting yeast, skip the first rise. I use fast acting stuff and it works out fine.

b)If you’re mixing by hand
Mix the water, syrup (or sugar or whatever your sweet thing is) and the yeast and let the liquid mixture stand for five minutes. Put two cups of the flour with the salt in a large bowl and stir in the liquid. I’d use two wooden spoons for this, as it cuts down on mess. Then add the rest of the flour and stir a bit more until you get a dough. Turn this out onto a floured board. Remember to flour the board and your hands, never the dough. Knead by hand for about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Skip the first rise if you are using fast-acting yeast.

First rise
Bear in mind that most yeast sold in the supermarket is fast-acting, so you can probably skip this part. But if it’s ordinary yeast, put the dough in a large bowl. Brush oil lightly over one side of cling film and place this over the bowl with the greased side down. Let it sit in a warm place for about an hour. It should double in size, but don’t worry if it hasn’t risen by as much as that.

Whether you’ve skipped the first rise or not, you’ve now got your basic dough. Easy.

Shape the bagels
Give it a quick knead again to knock the air out a bit. It’ll all come out anyway, because next you’re going to roll it out flat about 14 inches across. Don’t worry about getting it exactly right, it’s just to get the dough breathing. I use the length of a rolling pin as a guide, like so:

Do this on a well floured surface with a rolling pin. If you don’t have one, you can skip this step. Once it’s flat, let it rest for five minutes. Then squish it all back together and with a divide it into eight pieces.

With two hands, make a ball out of each one. Don’t roll them out, just cup them in your hands like you’re making a snowball. Then flatten them slightly and stick a finger through the middle, keep turning them so they get stretched evenly as you pull the middles bigger and until you have a decent sized hole that you can get three fingers in.

Put these on a non-stick, lightly greased baking tray.

Second rise
Lightly brush oil on one side of some cling film and lay it oily side down across the top of the bagels in the tray.

Don’t make it too greasy, the oil is just there just to stop the dough sticking to the cloth, not to add any flavour or texture to the bagels. Leave them aside in a warm place and let them rise for about 20 minutes.

Preheat your oven now to about 220C/400F, because you’re going to need it really hot. And make sure you put a cake tray or shallow casserole dish in the bottom of the oven while it’s heating - I’ll come back to this in a second.

Boiling
While your oven is getting nice and hot, start boiling a large pot with at least 4 inches of water in it, and when your 20 minutes are up, and the bagels have risen under the cling film, you’re going to drop them into the boiling water. You can do 3 or 4 at a time, just make sure they have room to float around a bit.

They’re going to expand quite a bit, so start with a couple to begin with. Put them top side down into the water first, because they will look better in the end. They may sink down to the bottom for a bit, but they will rise up, and you want to boil them for about a minute each side, turning them once, before taking them out with a slotted spoon or a spatula and putting them on a rack. You could put them on a tea towel if you don’t have a rack, but don’t use a plate, because they need to dry off so let the air get to them to dry out a bit.

Baking
Brush them with a little water, add some poppy seeds, or sesame seeds or anything you like. Onions, cinnamon, whatever. If you’re adding nothing at all, still brush them with water because it’ll given them a light glaze. Put the bagels, now nice and puffy and thick, back onto your baking tray. You can pack them close together now - they aren’t going to rise any more.

Remember that shallow tray in the hot oven? That’s the key to a really good glaze, because you’re improvising to make a steam oven. Get a small glass of cold water or a half dozen ice cubes and pour/put them into the dish in the bottom of your oven. This will steam bake your bagels, which is the best way to cook them. Whack the bagels in straight away in the middle shelf and bake for 20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. You can take them out halfway through and brush them with water. It’ll help with the finish, but don’t leave the oven door open longer than a few seconds, because you have to keep the oven hot for bagels. Don’t brush them too much if you’ve added poppy seeds, because they’ll fall right off.

And that’s it.

Let them cool on a rack.

They freeze really well because bagels are more dense than bread, but you’ll want to eat at least one straight away.

I’m a huge fan of Kevin Kling, a broadcaster and writer from the American midwest. Maybe there’s something about big sky country that produces good writing. I should look into that. Flat open spaces and solitude. It makes a lot of sense.

Here’s one of two stories of his I’ll post this week and it’s called Otto And The Moose

I hope your weekend is going OK. Those bagels are smelling pretty good about now.

I’ll post the recipe up tomorrow, then we’ll have a rigged phone-in and answer (or possibly add to) some of your personal problems.

Here’s a song that ticks a lot of my musical boxes. Hard, strong rhythms, horns belting out, a great bassline, huge choruses and an infectious tune. If I mixed Mad Libs with musical cliches from rock journalism, it’s (name of soft melodic band) on (a type of hard drug).

I’m not sure if everyone in the UK knows what Mad Libs are, but you get the idea.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are band who recorded this belter of a song in the late 90’s in a style known as, for reasons which will soon become obvious if you don’t already know: “skacore”. They started in the 80’s and are still around today, but this is their finest hour. I also like the way the singer delivers doubtful lines with authority, especially the “No? -Well…” right before the chorus.

And the chord after the “could” in the first chorus. And A5, maybe, or a sustained 2? It sounds unresolved anyway, like you’re catching breaths between a battering by waves. Nice, all the same.

If you’re just here for the bagels, you’re a little early. They’re not ready yet, but you’re just in time for this.

I’ve never had to knock on wood
but I know someone who has
which makes me wonder if I could,
it makes me wonder if…
I’ve never had to knock on wood
and I’m glad I haven’t yet
because I’m sure it isn’t good
that’s the impression that I get.

Listen: The Impression That I Get

—
Related pages
Weekend Song archive

Cheers you. Weekend song tomorrow, then next week I’ll show you how to cook ridiculously delicious bagels, followed by the usual posts that happen here and a couple of gems I found online that I think you’ll enjoy. Blog my arse. I’m going so mainstream. Three guests and a band by summer? Bit of a monologue to start? “10 minutes, Mr Jones.”

Have a great weekend.

To: letters@dailymail.co.uk 

Dear Sir/Madam,

I read with great interest your article in entitled “Why rabbits love liquorice (and elephants can’t jump)” on today’s edition p15 (and also e-edition here).

The article states:

The only two animals that can see behind themselves without turning their head are the RABBIT and the PARROT.

I know for a fact that chameleons can also look behind them without moving their heads. So can lobsters. Also, penguins can not jump more than six feet. They can swim out of water and launch themself up on to rocks, but that’s it.

Was today’s article written by immigrants who have taken all the staff jobs at the Daily Mail while the hardworking middle classes are squeezed by Labour, or is there some deeper point you wish to make for a change?

Sincerely,

Cliff

PS. Can a cow walk upstairs backwards?
—
Related post
Sir,

He gets promotion, I get a post, you get a laugh. Everyone wins.

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