A few days ago I got my first electricity bill for the flat, something that has only taken e-on the best part of 6 months to sort out. It was under-estimated and still in the landlord's name so I figured it might be wise to get the matter cleared up before I get saddled with a court summons or something. I phoned them up and (surprise surprise) sat on hold for about 10 minutes, got transferred around departments, twiddled my thumbs, though in the end they sounded like they were going to be ok about sending me out a corrected bill so I can pay it off.

This however led me to thinking who I would actually like to supply me with electricity and after a little research came across an outfit called Green Energy UK who while being a small concern look damn committed to both regular renewables and interestingly micro-generation from agricultural sites. Much of the latter (as far as I can tell) involves burning gas, generating electricity, heating the greenhouses with the waste heat and pumping the CO2 in as well to make the tomatoes happy. Strikes me as very smart thinking with big benefits to the farming industry and british vegetable consumers! Imagine what would happen if you scaled that up and it became common practice.

The big deal though was after I had signed up, I called them to change the date of the direct debit. One ring and they picked up. No menus, no sitting on hold for hours, no transfers to other departments, just a helpful bloke called Roger. Really that is what I call customer service. Seriously.