Train To Complain

Ofcom recently censured Channel 4 after a Hollyoaks episode aired, pre-watershed, that depicted a character dying after a fight. The character, Simon Walker, was left reeling by a kick that hit him like a train, before being hit by a train. Despite the intentionally distressing nature of the scene, only one complaint was received, the rest of the show’s audience no doubt struggling to notice the difference between the character before and after his death. I watched 12 minutes of one episode before I realised the TV was turned off. Ofcom have not, as yet, responded to my complaint that the remaining characters remain alive.

Of course, I’m being intentionally flippant. I couldn’t do what the actors of Hollyoaks do; read a Hollyoaks script aloud in front of people.

It’s hard to know when to complain and how to approach making a complaint. I worked as a waiter in a restaurant for a number of years, and I’ve been an avid consumer for as long as I’ve had money (I’m 29 now, so, let’s see… yes, three years...), so I know a thing or two about the giving and receiving of complaints.

And yet I can’t bring myself to actually make one. When my food is delivered to my placemat with all the pomp and ceremony befitting a beef burger with onion ring, bacon, cheese, relish and side of fries thin chips, only for it to be lukewarm; I sigh with the resigned air of a man powerless to stop his blood pressure rising without even taking a bite. I curse inwardly, but outwardly bemoan the burden under which the understaffed kitchen team had slaved in order to produce the meal, however substandard.

I’ve faced the banshee like objections of a woman who thought a sultana in her scone was a stone. I smiled, fawned and apologised. I refunded, distracted and withdrew. It was a slightly crispy sultana, and I acted like President Assad at a UN security council cocktail party. And even though I would likely get the same reaction, were I to complain myself, I still can’t bring myself to do it.

I have no idea what “compensation culture” could be. I’m probably the only person that could legitimately claim back on mis-sold payment protection insurance, but I’ll never know. By contrast, my girlfriend once complained to her energy supplier when she found a spider in the gas meter box, outside her house. They told her to call the RSPCA.

It could be the old-fashioned English reserve that Hugh Grant made so famous in his many films, and when picking up prostitutes, presumably. I have loads of that stereotypical reserve. I have huge reserves of reserve, like Africa, but where the antelope smoke carved wooden pipes with bemonocled cheetahs, and lions sip Earl Grey with zebras.

Perhaps I should practise. If you work in the retail industry in Bristol, beware the extremely pedantic consumer about to cross your path. At the merest sign of a less than

enthusiastic welcome, or service that would be more usually associated with a kebab shop, expect a drama more hard-hitting than a Hollyoaks omnibus.

If so, apologies. You can always complain.