In lieu of anything funny, here’s an email I sent to Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch today. I was aiming for ‘chummy’ but I think I overshot and landed squarely on ‘arsehole’.

“To Jeremy Darroch

Subject: Sky Signal Problems

Dear Jeremy

I am Sky customer number XXXXXXXXX and I thought I’d drop you a line about my experience with Sky over the last 17 months.

First, we need to talk about your Sky+ boxes. I’ve lost count of the number we had in the first year, but I’m sure your records will show exactly how many. Some seemed to have reception problems and some switched off at various random intervals.

Recently, while watching ‘The Apprentice’, I turned to my partner and asked “How does Alan Sugar make any money these days? Amstrad haven’t made anything commercially successful for about 20 years.”

Then I remembered that Amstrad make Sky+ boxes. You and I are putting his kids through college.

I didn’t sign on for that, Jeremy.

Though I lost an unwatched season of ‘24’, lots of ’30 Rock’ and plenty of kids television that I had on various hard drives, we finally got our hands on a working box. All was good.

Then summer came and we kept losing channels. There may have been another Sky+ box and another few quid from you to Lord Sugar.

Then a breakthrough. An engineer nailed the problem.

“It’s your neighbour’s tree. Now it’s got leaves, it’s in the way of the satellite and the dish.”

I don’t know if you’re aware of ‘line of sight’, but it’s okay. I’ve got it covered. I’ve watched “Independence Day”.

I’ve drawn you some diagrams:

It should work like this –

But this is actually happening:

“So you can just move the dish a bit higher and it’s sorted?” we asked.
“No, can’t do that. Health and safety. A bloke died falling off a ladder,” replied the engineer.
“Oh. That’s sad. We’re having some scaffolding put up in the next few months. Could you do it then?”
“No problem. Give us a call when you have it up and we’ll move it for you.”

We muddled through with intermittent signal problems over the next few months until the scaffolding arrived and we called Sky out again.

“The previous engineer told us that he couldn’t move the dish because of health and safety.” We explained to the new engineer.
“That’s rubbish,” said the new engineer. “We can move the dish any time.”
“Oh, that’s a tad annoying,” We replied. “Can you move it now then?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve got scaffolding up.”
“Right,” we smiled politely.
“I can turn the dish a little bit for you, if you like, see if that helps?”

And it did help. Until Friday.

The good news is that, despite the harsh winter, my neighbour’s tree is doing really well. We can’t get any channels now.

Okay, we can get E4, but that’s not a real channel, more a ‘Friends’ box set on an infinite loop.

I phoned Sky up again Friday evening and they said the earliest they could get an engineer out to move the dish is Wednesday.

Here’s the view of the telly this morning when I was hoping against hope that I could watch the finale of ‘Lost’:

Admittedly, it was ‘Lost’. I’d probably have about as much idea of what was going on if I’d just stared at the blue screen for two and a half hours, than if I’d actually watched the episode.

Still, it would’ve been nice to have the option.

The kids miss watching Peppa Pig. I miss them watching Peppa Pig. Them watching Peppa Pig means I don’t have to ask questions like “Who’s put jam all over my DVDs?”

For the record, your staff on the end of the telephone have all been first rate. I once even spoke to Shay Given’s cousin, which was the highlight of what was a very dull day.

Still, it would have been nice to have had the equipment installed correctly or the issues sorted out way back when they first started. I’ve lost the ability to watch a lot of programming over the last few months.

So fingers crossed for Wednesday when hopefully I’ll have all the channels I pay for.

Thanks for your time

Best Regards

Dave Turner”

Apparently Sky have phoned to chat to me about it, but I was at work…