Tuesday 21st May 2024, 22:54
The saga about getting to my apartment in Canterbury continues: I wandered around Canterbury for a while visited a couple of charity shops and bought a Wodehouse book in one. Then I connected to a shop WiFI to check for messages, got a message saying that the landlord has an email address to which I can send a picture of my ID and they also sent me information about where to park my car, supposedly ten minutes walk from the flat. But the postcode takes one to the road behind the building, it's a good job they also sent a couple of pictures of the surroundings. So I finally got my car parked in the tiniest parking space I have seen for quite a while. The space must be less than four metres long, too short for every car I have owned except for the two Minis (real ones not the BMW travesty).
I timed the walk to the apartment, could be done in ten minutes if you can walk briskly and have no luggage. More like fifteen for most people I know, perhaps even twenty for anyone with luggage or who is less sprightly.
But I still haven't got the code for the lock box with the door keys. Eventually that arrives and I walk back to my car to fetch a bag of clothes, etc. Didn't time myself this time but I'm sure it took longer carrying the bag, I get into the apartment which is quite big. Plainly decorated and furnished but it all looks to be quite reasonable. Bit I can't find anything to tell me what the WiFi password is or even which access point to use. So I walk over the road to the Wetherspoon's and use their WiFI to send yet another message. I go for a walk while waiting for a reply. The reply says where the router is and that the SSID and password are on the bottom of it. That works.
I thought I might watch some television but it's a streaming only device. That means that if I want to watch the BBC I have to create an account with the BBC, create a profile on the TV itself, lie to the BBC to say that I have a TV licence.
Why don't landlords of places like this create a handbook and also why don't they set up the TV properly. It shouldn't be necessary to extract this kind of information one drop at a time.
