I have no idea what UPC stands for. If I were to hazard a guess though I’d say it stands for ‘Ultimate Pack of C*nts’. In our household we have been subscribers of NTL since the good old days of analogue TV and until fairly recently there had been little to complain about—leaving me at a loose end. But ever since Chorus NTL became “a UPC company” our telly has fallen victim to a succession of little faults that threatens to turn my hair grey. Now here’s a good gripe I can really sink my teeth into!

Apparently I’m not the only one who’s got issue with UPC and their shoddy service. Newstalk presenter Claire Byrne recently gave the UPC Ireland chief executive a good grilling on behalf of the hundreds of disgruntled customers who had called in to The Breakfast Show to complain about the standard of product and support they had received. The man’s only response was (and I’m only paraphrasing slightly here) “Oh, well we’re doing our best to improve our service”.

Since that interview, however, the problems have kept on coming. Maybe it’s time Ireland’s couch potatoes got off their arse and made the switch to Sky. Maybe then your man from UPC would stop paying lip service and actually put his money where his mouth is. I would have made the switch already myself were we not bound by a 12-month contract. Maybe I should just swallow my pride and cut my losses, but I just can’t bear the idea of giving UPC a further €100 just to have them terminate the contract.

We Irish do love a good moan now and again I’ll give you that, but, believe me, I take no great pleasure in bemoaning UPC’s substandard service. I’m willing to concede there may be more important matters in the world right now, but there are none that hit closer to home.