Top 100 books for me that I have read or want to read ....

Probably not in preferential order here .......... Haven't yet read all of these but will get round to them !!!! 1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien 2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen 3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman 4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams 5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling 6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee 7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne 8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell 9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis 10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë 11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller 12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë 13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks 14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier 15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger 16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame 17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens 18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott 19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres 20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy 21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell 22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling 23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling 24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling 25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien 26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy 27. Middlemarch, George Eliot 28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving 29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck 30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll 31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson 32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez 33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett 34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens 35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl 36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson 37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute 38. Persuasion, Jane Austen 39. Dune, Frank Herbert 40. Emma, Jane Austen 41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery 42. Watership Down, Richard Adams 43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald 44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas 45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh 46. Animal Farm, George Orwell 47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens 48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy 49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian 50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher 51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett 52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck 53. The Stand, Stephen King 54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy 55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth 56. The BFG, Roald Dahl 57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome 58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell 59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer 60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky 61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman 62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden 63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens 64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough 65. Mort, Terry Pratchett 66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton 67. The Magus, John Fowles 68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett 70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding 71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind 72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell 73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett 74. Matilda, Roald Dahl 75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding 76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt 77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins 78. Ulysses, James Joyce 79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens 80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson 81. The Twits, Roald Dahl 82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith 83. Holes, Louis Sachar 84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake 85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy 86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson 87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley 88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons 89. Magician, Raymond E Feist 90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac 91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo 92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel 93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett 94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho 95. Katherine, Anya Seton 96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer 97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez 98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson 99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot 100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

From frustration to farcical

Further developments around my infamous EDF energy issues ! 

I sent this email today and hope that something will come of it .... in the meantime I have cancelled my direct debit so they don't take a massive amount out of my bank account !!!

Dear Martin, Tannishtha, and anyone else to whom this may be of interest!

I have not received a response to my last email, and was not yet expecting one ...... but as matters have progressed, I am emailing again to advise you of my dismay that this query  has gone from a matter of frustration to pure farce!

In the last couple of days I have received 5 .... yes five ... letters from edf energy regarding my accounts.

What began as an enquiry to reduce my monthly payments has now led to EDF energy requesting a payment of £795.72 for the month of June !!!!

I work part time, term time only ...so ..... to put this in the immortal  words of a character played by Nicholas Cage ..... "How in the name of Zeus' butthole" am I supposed to find that amount, as opposed to my regular payments of around  a couple of hundred a month (which I was trying to reduce) !

The 5 letters went something like this 

1. account number ***** 3935 - thank you for letting us know you are on the move

2. account number *****7096 - thank you for letting us know you are on the move

3. account number *****1976 - Welcome to edf energy - we are already supplying energy to your new home

4. Your last gas statement for account ending 096 - £323.77 - direct debit to be taken out 19th June

5. New account number - electricity and gas ending in 976 - bill for £437.00 to be paid in June

HELLO ......... I have NOT MOVED HOUSE ...... 

I was hoping for a bill that would be LESS than my previous monthly payments - not for it to be quadrupled !!!

OK .....  lets do this step by step.

1. I get a bill in May to inform me my Direct Debit payment amount has increased to £100 a month
2. I query said bill
3. EDF responds ..... advising me I am not on dual fuel discount
4. I email back and inform EDF I am amazed, as I have been with you for at least 10 years
5. Approx 3-5 years ago EDF CALLED ME to persuade me to remain a customer for BOTH gas and electricity .... all in the one phone call
6. I agree to remain, rather than transfer to another supplier, assuming I had been put on your best possible tariff for my situation
7. In querying the bill (step 2 ) to sort this out, some numpty has gone through a computerised process that is NOT APPROPRIATE.
8. ALL I need is a transfer of the 2 accounts to one account and to continue with my bills now combined at a reduced rate
9. There is NO WAY I can pay a lump sum and do not believe I should have to pay this, as I have been a long term regular customer
10. My electricity bill does indicate £666.70 of cancelled charges but with no specific explanation of what the cancellation/credit is for 
11. This credit simply states it covers the period of  November 2012 to May 2013 - what happened to the last 10 years or at the very least backdated to when EDF contacted me to encourage me not to transfer to another supplier

Please will someone actually get off their backsides and  manually sort this out, rather than allowing a generic computer process to label me yet another number in your vast array of numbers, with no actual thought process as to how this will affect an individual who is already in fuel poverty.

yours in grateful anticipation

Jane Hall

Watch this space .......

Energy Bullies

I am publishing these emails below as I simply cannot believe the arrogance of the energy companies.

My daughter has a separate query .... to which they are dragging their heels and stalling her. 

My query below originated with an initial enquiry into whether or not I was on the best tariff - bearing in mind about 3 years ago they called me to persuade me to stay with their company ..... as I had been looking into swapping .....although to be honest I think they are all as bad as each other !!

I am sure I cannot be the only one who made the assumption that the energy company ..... ANY energy company .... would automatically ensure I was on a dual fuel tariff as I had an Electricity AND Gas account with them ..... 


From: Jane Hall 
Date: 31.05.2013 10:45:38 
To: customerenquiries@edfenergy.com 
Cc: consumeraffairs@ofgem.gov.uk 

Subject: Dual Fuel Query 

Dear Sirs,

Re Account Numbers 

I have been with EDF energy for several years and am shocked to discover that I have not been provided with the dual fuel discount.

I was informed yesterday, after I had made an enquiry about whether I am on the best tariff, that I have 2 separate accounts - I had no idea that I should have one account - I assumed that as you are the provider and can see in your records that the address for both accounts was the same, that this would have been provided at set up ? 

I also was under the impression that you are now obligated to provide the BEST tariff possible to your customers and I simply find it reprehensible that you can operate without providing this BEST price tariff automatically!

I would be most grateful if you could check my account as soon as possible and apply the discount AND backdate any discount that I have missed out on, as I believe I should be entitled to this, having been a long term customer with you with both electricity and gas !


Dear Mrs Hall,

Thank you for your email dated 31st May 2013.

I really apologise for the inconvenience caused. However this is something our customers are aware of and depends on the date when you are starting your contract account with us for each fuel .If the account for the fuels start on two different dates then there would not be one single account for both.

However, no need to worry, I have merged both the accounts for you and henceforth, you would be using one single account  and would be eligible for the discount that is available for  a duel fuel customer.

Yours sincerely, 

Customer Service Advisor
EDF Energy

Dear ....

Many thanks for your reply and for merging both of my accounts.

However, I am not quite satisfied and actually a little dismayed at your cavalier response to my query.

In my email I mention that I was "shocked to discover that I have not been provided with the dual fuel discount."   and that "I had no idea that I should have one account"

Yet you stated that "this is something our customers are aware of" ... are you insinuating that I am thick? 

I AM A CUSTOMER ...... I WAS NOT AWARE THAT YOU HAD NOT AUTOMATICALLY MATCHED MY ADDRESS TO SHOW I WAS A CUSTOMER FOR BOTH FUELS.

You also state "If the account for the fuels start on two different dates then there would not be one single account for both"  How am I supposed to know this?

When I set up my second account (I cannot recall whether I set up my gas or electricity first) I am absolutely certain I would have informed EDF that I was already a customer. Even if I did not tell them this, way back in 1997/8, when I initially set up my accounts, I know I did more recently.

In fact .... to get to the point ..... about 3/4 years ago I looked to transfer both my gas and electricity to another provider - at which point EDF ENERGY PHONED ME TO PERSUADE ME TO REMAIN WITH them !!  

EDF energy were well aware I had both accounts with them, at that time...... AND YET .... when  persuaded  to remain with EDF I was still not given the one account !!! I am sure you can check your records for this.

As I mentioned earlier I am grateful that you have now transferred to the one account but am disappointed that you did not even mention any backdated recompense for the years of extra payments I have paid into EDF's already overinflated coffers !

I have copied both BBC Watchdog and Offgem into this email as they may be interested in the way EDF seem to be able to get away with this ..... I am absolutely certain I am not the only customer who has been misled.

Well ...... make of it what you will blog readers .... I will let you know if they make any offer or if they decide to sort my daughter's account too !!!

PS .... my apologies for not having blogged for a whole month and the next one will be much more interesting I'm sure !!!