You are probably familiar with the saying ‘a poor workman blames his tools’, but I don’t feel this is strong enough for the world today; so I propose: ‘a poor workman blames everything’.

Having had a slight problem with the heating (and having had the foresight to check it in the Summer), I got a bloke in to have a look and hopefully fix it. I know what the problem is and it’s not a big deal.
As agreed, he turns up (the regulation hour late) and decides that 2 parts are required – that will require a revisit, and this was duly booked for two days later.
Part 2: turns up again the regulation hour late, and starts to dismantle the boiler; I leave at this point as I have other matters to deal with upstairs. Twenty minutes later I return to the kitchen to be given a lecture about the poor quality of the boiler, the parts attached to it, the fact it doesn’t match up with his book, blah blah blah…
I remain calm despite the fact that this is one area of complaint that particularly pisses me off; the ‘who sold you this’, ‘who did this job’ etc etc. I try to remember what happened last time the boiler was looked at – some time ago, and it has been working fine since; when suddenly Mr Fixit announces that he can’t work whilst being watched and doesn’t like being questioned. Whilst I was momentarily stunned by this ‘artistic’ outbreak he starts ramming the boiler back together (and I do mean ramming), which did prompt a question from me, as half of the casing was hanging off.
Mr Fixit announces that he will have to come back again; at which point I realised this was not going to happen… and I was correct.
Saturday I cleared the kitchen, moved the washing machine etc to give a good workspace; and exactly as expected: the twat failed to show, and no answer when called.

Soooooo, what to do? All those local sites and the Yellow Pages are just doorways to new and unknown worlds of overpriced amateur hell, so I bit the bullet and called British Gas.
The lines were busy at first and playing a message about how there were busy due to the ‘severe weather conditions’, and ‘dealing with vulnerable clients first’. Admirable, but suspect, as most of the country is 20 deg C and bathed in sunshine.
Anyway; got through in the end and a visit is booked for Tuesday morning, I have had to sell a kidney but at least I can expect to have some faith in their work, hopefully.