Life must be filled up

After what has been a lacklustre fifth Test, Michael Clarke's declaration set up a nail biting finish with England chasing runs. England needed twenty one runs to win and looked like getting them, when the players were taken off for bad light. It's the rules. It's the ICC. It's not common sense. One minute you're on the edge of your seat and the next, flat as a pancake. Game over. I could have cried and I'm surprised the crowd didn't riot in frustration. This is England, though. Jonathan Agnew is very reasonably urging people not to blame Clarke or the umpires. Can the players really be feeling as accepting as they appeared in their interviews? They're so trained up to give sound bites you never know what they really think about anything.

BTW, wouldn't it have been nice for me to watch this last gripping day, using my new Sky NOW TV box? Two weeks on, I'm still waiting for the replacement remote and have just had an email saying it's on its way. Too late!

I’ve always refused to have Sky, partly because, you know, Murdoch, and partly because I won’t fork out a hefty monthly subscription when all I want is the cricket.

Then I found out about the SKY NOW TV box. For £9.99, including delivery, you get BBC iPlayer on your TV, Sky News and various other options including Spotify. Cricket? You can buy a one day sports pass; rather expensive but I wouldn’t be using it much. I researched this quite thoroughly and saw only favourable reviews: ‘at this price it’s a no brainer’ etc. So I ordered a box and it came quite quickly.

I set it up, got as far as having the start up menu on screen but couldn’t go any further because the remote wouldn’t work. I checked all the troubleshooting help in the manual but nothing there applied. Yes, I’d checked the batteries and pointed the remote directly at the screen and no, the light on the box didn’t flash when the buttons were pressed.

My first port of call was to try Live Chat, as recommended. Hopeless, couldn’t get through. I emailed help. In order to do this I had to sign in fully giving all details including a security question and choosing a PIN. I was told by email that I would have to send the box back, but that the writer couldn’t order a replacement *because I hadn’t signed in*, which I had. Since then emails have flown back and forth, I’ve tried over and over to sign in as requested, which I do but never get the correct prompts to proceed. Today’s advice was to go to Live Chat (link provided) but the button wasn’t even on screen. It’s not just me. I’ve been searching the Community for help and here’s a typical query: ‘Will someone PLEASE tell me how to access Live Chat?’ Someone, (from Sky) did. I followed all those links but still no luck. I don’t blame the person who’s been emailing me at all, he’s following correct procedures. It’s just that their system *doesn’t work*.

So I have a useless box, Sky have my money and we’ve reached an impasse. I shop a lot online and I have NEVER had this trouble in getting faulty or damaged goods replaced.
It’s at times like this I wish I were on Facebook or Twitter, which seem effective channels of complaint. I have two options, it seems. One, the very random chance that someone from Sky sees this and says, ‘Oh, we’re so sorry for your inconvenience, we’ll send you another box’. Or I just return the thing and demand a refund.