Crazy Diamond

Last week I received an email from 'giffgaff', a company some of you may be familiar with. It told me I had placed an order for a SIM card. I assumed it was spam and thought no more about it since I had never heard of giffgaff or placed an order. A few hours later, I received an email to tell me my order had been dispatched. I was curious as to what that was about and decided to try and ask. I found that the company was genuine and tried to contact them, but they do not have a phone number. I did not want to sign up to them or their 'community' which deals with problems and instead used Twitter and Facebook to get in touch. On Twitter I was ignored, but on Facebook I was contacted by what I assume is a man who runs the Facebook page, as he seemed to be representing the company but from his own Facebook profile. My main point of concern was how they had obtained my details, because they had found my email address and apparently my home address too. I had never given these details out to them, yet in both emails it said something along the lines of 'by placing an order with us, you have given your consent to be contacted.' I find that quite shocking. Anyway, the Facebook person told me that it is likely that a friend of mine had passed my details on to them, but that friend cannot be named for 'data protection reasons.' When I asked more, I was fobbed off with various different things and told to calm down, it wasn't giffgaff's fault. By that stage, I'd had enough and was quite ****ed off at the whole situation. I never distribute my home address. Ever. I don't know how my friends would have got it, or thought it would be appropriate to give them to a company - frankly I just don't believe any of that. I began bombarding their Twitter account for answers. Eventually I was given an email address to complain to and did just that, emphasising that I had never placed an order, never given out my details, never given my consent to be contacted - and as for data protection, where was my entitlement to that? The reply was 'we'll have a look at what has happened.' I'm still waiting, and today received the SIM card I never asked for. I am told they do not buy personal information from anyone, but I have a feeling this might be the case. I'm unsatisfied with their response and do not like the fact that instead of an actual presence, they have a 'community' of people that run a forum and a Facebook page to deal with issues. What can I do? I want to complain to a higher authority, I want to know how they got my details and I want them to stop sending me things. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Wow. I can't even be bothered to watch it, it's so bad tonight. It's not bad actually, just ****ing boring.

Would have thought 'Two Promotions is Not Enough' would be good.

Better call the factory and get them to stop the production line. No more foam hands for us.

Adkins is as good as gone. The Club came out and said Pardew wouldn't be sacked at one point. How did that turn out? Oh yeah...

Trojan and Holoship are very similar episodes in terms of plot, but the scripts and acting couldn't be further apart.

The thing I've come to conclude is that Red Dwarf's hardcore fans are very spoilt and cannot accept that the series may have to end. Television programmes have a shelf life, and really RD's ended in about 1996/7. Series eight was made and the realisation should have been that it wasn't very good and should have ended there and then. But no, it HAD to come back, even if it was nine years later. 'Back to Earth' wasn't very good but no, it HAD to warrant a new series. I would not complain if RD had ended after series six. The only reason for the two comebacks is its very loyal fans, who just can't accept that it might have had its day. An episode like 'Lemons' or 'Trojan' for me should be the warning signs that no, it cannot carry on forever and it may be finally time to just give it up once and for all.

Dear me. Couldn't agree less. I thought 'Pree' was great. Last night wasn't that good at all.

Marks out of ten for trying to lighten the mood though and being good, not writing on the wallpaper in crayon? 5/10.

No problem, but here's what I'm saying: A journalist is employed to seek out news. By asking about this feud, the author was doing exactly that. He asked in the hope of finding something new and he got a pretty decent quote... Is it different? To my mind yes. The choice of words are as I say quite shocking to me - has he gone on record with those exact words before, or words to that effect? If he has, okay, you might accuse the author of stirring or churnalism, but as far as I know there hasn't been. Is it news? For me it is, yes. I understand I'm in the minority on this one chaps, I really do. But to my mind, this is indeed news and as much as I knew Le Tiss didn't like or didn't get on with Cortese, I didn't know it was this bad. Matt has always seemed to me a quite mild-mannered bloke, something must have really got up his arse to say what he said and phrase it in the way he did. As for Matt: Put up or shut up, yes, I agree. If he is THIS annoyed about it, he ought to do everyone a favour and spill.

Yes your opinion is quite clear and I still think you're wrong to be honest, but such is the nature of the subject. It's a very good point.

Dear oh dear. Anyone want to quote me properly today? I thought Simon was meant to be bad with his quotes in this bizarre reality.

Simon got the truth though didn't he? Personally I think it's a bit alarming for Matt to come out and use those words specifically but I'm in the minority apparently.

If this kind of quote went unreported, people would be annoyed, and by the way, it's exactly this sort of thing that has been rumoured on here but never actually been confirmed.

What the hell are you talking about? It's pretty scathing to say someone is a bad human being isn't it? You really think that's not a story? I bet no-one is arguing about the point that Le Tiss will remain a fan of the club and won't be put off by any of this. Is that not a non-story as well? We all know he loves the club, would do anything for it, blah blah blah. Get a grip, the lot of you. Congratulations, you too have misquoted me. Are we sure Simon is a bad journalist when half of you can't read properly?

You've misquoted me. "TRIED to shed some light on it." So we know nothing about the feud. The question is asked. That's trying to find out about it, shed light on it. As it happens, Matt didn't want to say anything. Frankly I'd be amazed if he did turn round and say "Right, the thing is this, Cortese did XYZ" - but at least some effort was made to at least ask about the problem.

So hang on, people don't like it when they don't know what is going on, now that Simon has tried to shed some light on it, it's absolutely terrible? Pathetic really.

Steve's out there right now.

He's small fry. I cut my teeth in the journo game by working at Bournemouth and spent a lot of time working with him. He and Steve Fletcher loved being the small fish in the micro-sized pond that is Bournemouth. Not entirely surprised being in the Championship with a former Premier League club was too much for him. That said he did a good job. The one thing that always struck me was the team spirit at Bournemouth in the year they won promotion to League One, and the attitude around the squad when they were battling against oblivion, bogged down by a 17 point deduction, facing relegation and going out of business. At Burnley I know for a fact that's not the case as I'm friends with a certain Burnley player that will also be returning to Bournemouth with Tindall and Howe, and he let me know quite often about the lack of harmony at Turf Moor. As Steve said, he won't ever get another chance like that, and he picked Burnley above Peterborough and Charlton. He won't have that luxury of choice ever again. I think it'll go tits up at Bournemouth again personally. Not enough fans watching, Mitchell is a madman, too many overpaid players and a lack of transparency with the money. Wow. Now that I say that, I realise I could be talking about a club a lot closer to my heart...

It was absolutely terrible yesterday. Those hard working people that used to sell programmes with their irreplacable service and the sense of heritage, gone. Oh wait no, I actually got a programme quicker than normal and there was no problem at all.

Haven't had FIFA since 2005, getting it later today. Hope it's worth the money...

Not exactly difficult though. Series eight was a load of ****e as well. I thought it was okay but nothing more. The moose thing was laboured at times but not a bad gag. I dislike the lack of buildup and emotion in key areas. Rimmer finds his brother and there's nothing. 'Okay see you in 15 hours.' But hey it's not as if he's not seen his brother in a long, long time... Say three million years... Oh. Again, 'we've found a ship' and then they're on there. No build up. At all. What was that ******** about how the Trojan was powered as well? Howard dies. Oh well that's a shame. Nothing. Cat is no longer cool and effortlessly funny. Everything seems overacted. Kryten looks like ****e. Lister isn't too bad given Craig Charles is nearly 50 now. People are saying it's like the Red Dwarf of old but to me it's a mixture of the old and new. Anyway, I was encouraged enough to want to watch next week.

Sorry but I just can't get misty eyed about programme sellers. I think it's a nasty way of doing business, getting rid of people with no notice and two days before a game, but I'm not going to lose sleep over no one yelling "PROGRAMMES!" before each match. As far as 'losing our heritage' goes, it's not quite up there with making our ex-players and managers feel unwelcome or even persona non grata, to my mind.

New series of Red Dwarf starts tonight at 9pm on Dave. What do we think? I grew up with it and sadly it just got progressively worse, but apparently they're back on form with this new series. One hour to go!

Where's that then? Link?