In praise of bots

British Gas finally agreed to service my boiler, for no reason I could make out other than the boiler wasn’t new any more. All the while it was new, they refused to go anywhere near it.

The majestic Worcester Bosch was installed four years ago as I began my renovations, egged on by the builder boyfriend’s bold assurances about the king of combination boilers. When I rang and asked to take out a Homecare agreement on it, I was expecting them to jump at the chance of what would surely be money for old rope.

It was hardly going to break down any time soon, or ever, according to the BB, so I was baffled when they turned me down.

If they had installed it, that would be different, they said. But as I had gone ahead and bought a new boiler of my own choice, willy-nilly, from the plumb centre down the road, without even stopping to consult them on their many attractive boiler-installation choices and offers, I would have to service it myself, was the gist of it. Well, not myself, but I would have to get the man who installed it to service it. The tone was very much one of a lover who had been cheated on.

In any case, their policy was not to go near it. ‘Ever?’ I asked, for I had always had one of their policies on my boiler at the old place. And I’ve been a loyal customer of their gas and electricity for years.

‘Computer says go screw your new boiler,’ was the essence of the reply. In many ways, it was just as well, because a glitch in the renovations meant the Worcester Bosch was purring away while suspended 20ft above the kitchen floor.