Customer Call Centre Tips

Calling Customer Call Centres can be stressful - pressing various numbers to get connected, waiting on hold for someone, being passed from department to department and then action you thought had been agreed not happening. So here are some tips to help you through the process.

•  First make sure you have all necessary paperwork to hand - e.g. invoices, receipts, order forms, bills, statements, etc.
• Beat the automated phone menu system by using www.pleasepress1.com - just look up the company you want to contact and you'll get a sequence of numbers you need to press to get you to your chosen department.
• Get an app to queue for you as you wait 'for an advisor to be free'. Try using WeQ4U free app for iPhone and Android phones which will stay on hold for you. Dial with the app(skip through the menu with shortcuts as above, then when you are in a queue, press 9* - the app will phone you back and reconnect you the moment an advisor answers.
• Once the matter has been sorted out, ask them to read back their notes and also to make a note on the system of what has been siad and agreed, then get them to read back that note to you.
• If they are sending written confirmation (e.g. an engineer appointment) as for it as an email and get them to wait on the phone till it arrives. Always open the email and check the details before ending the phone call.
• The first advisor you speak to may not be able to deal with the issue, and when they transfer you to another advisor may not fill them in on the issue, or even be the right person to deal with it. If you have to be transferred to someone else, ask the first advisor to stay on the line when they connect your call and to explain your issue to their colleague to avoid the pass-the-parcel saga.

Mostly from a feature in Glamour, February 2015

Create Animated Videos and Presentations

Q. Apart from Powerpoint presentations and Prezi, are there other tools I could use instead?

A. Try a resource called Powtoon www.powtoon.com/. You can use it to create animated videos and presentations, and it's great for marketers, small businesses and educators/trainers. It's free (though there is a commercial version available) and quick and simple to learn how to use. It comes complete with clip art, animations, music, etc.

Phil Bradley in CILIP Update Dec/Jan 2014

More Fructose Facts

The current medical advice is:

• Max added sugar calories per day = 100 for women and 150 for men (American Heart Association).
• Max added sugar intake per day = 9 teaspoons for men, 6 for women and 3 for children (Australian sources)

Different fruits have different levels of fructose:

• Low: kiwis, grapefruits, honeydew melon, blueberries, raspberries.
• Medium: satsumas, plums, peaches, strawberries, oranges.
• High: grapes, cherries, apples, mangoes, bananas

Safe sugar substitutes:

• Glucose (dextrose) - weighs half as much as sugar but takes up more fluid.
• Rice malt syrup - should only contain rice and water, so avoid any with added sugar.
• Stevia granules or drops - the drops are more potent than regular sugar whereas most granules you can use as you would sugar. So 200g sugar = 200g granulated stevia or 1 teasp. liquid stevia; 1 tablesp. sugar or granulated stevia = 6 to 9 drops liquid stevia; 1 teasp. sugar or granulated stevia = 2 to 4 drops liquid stevia.

Many foods are better frozen - tofu stir fries better, nuts are crisper, many starchy vegetables such as sweetcorn and peas since the freezing process stops the starch breaking down into sugar.

Sarah Wilson recipes are mainly gluten free and grain free as she feels that starches from grains can feed the sugar addiction and are best minimised if you have issues with sugar.

Some more facts from I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson, Macmillan UK 2014. See the website https://iquitsugar.com/

I Quit Sugar

I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson
Published by Macmillan UK, 2014

The author began her research in an effort to address her own health issues, in the process finding much recent scientific research that fructose, a form of sugar, has many damaging effects on the human body. [See post on Fructose Facts] Having weaned herself off sugar, with benefits to her health, in this book she sets out the facts about fructose and how you can follow her example with an eight week programme. Sarah advises quitting all sugar for the first two weeks to allow your body to recalibrate, with fruit and 'safe sugar alternatives' being re-introduced later on. Do read the whole book, which comes with lots of tips and recipes, but here's a quick overview.

• Week 1: Experiment with paring back sugar. Become more aware of which products and foods contain sugar, and cut down where you can (half a teaspoon or none in coffee where you had a whole teaspoon before).
• Week 2: Replace sugar with fat (e.g. unprocessed fats and quality protein, like eggs, cheese, nuts and coconuts - your natural 'fat full' hormones will tell you when you have had enough - but you'll need to start listening to your body saying'I'm full'. Many fats are vital and needed for immune health, digestion and metabolism, act as antioxidants and get rid of heavy metals and toxins in our systesms. [The 1950s study that lead to 'fat is bad' was flawed; it reported results from only the 7 of 22 countries that suggested a link and ignored results from the other 15 that disproved it.]
• Week 3: Quit all sugar to allow your body to readjust. Eat products with less than 3g to 6g of sugar per 100g or 100ml. With dairy products the first 4.7g of sugar will be lactose, so subtract that from the amount stated. A standard drink is 350ml, so the per 100 g/ml figure must be multiplied by 3.5. Avoid Thai food as it is heavy in sugar. Wine, beer and spirits contain minimal fructose (it has largely been converted to alcohol). Tonic water is high in sugar, so use soda water as a mixer. Useful foods for 'pick-me-ups' are: cacao, chia seeds, cheese, chicken, cinnamon, coconut oil (very sweet) - coconut water (sweet but negligible fructose), and coffee.
• Week 4: Face the demons - others may try to sabotage your efforts and you may be finding it difficult. Remember that 1 glass of apple juice or cola contains 10-12 teaspoons of sugar, 1 apple is 2-3 teaspoons, 1 banana 4 teaspoons. Low fat products (e.g. yoghurts) are usually higher in sugar.
• Week 5: Get creative and experiment with meals. If you do lapse, tomorrow is a new day to start again. Avoid the negative (I must quit chocolate) and find a positive (I must eat more healthy foods).
• Week 6. Add some sweetness back in with small amounts of low sugar vegetables and fruits, safe sugar substitutes and other spices and flavours.
• Week 7: Accept any lapses and start again the next day.
• Week 8: Moving forward. You have broken the cycle. Go easy on the fat, but by week 8 your body should be telling you what it needs.

Sarah now tries to keep to foods with less than 3g to 6g per 100 g/ml of sugar where possible. She eats 1 or 2 pieces of fruits a day (mostly berries). She has the occasional treat of 85% chocolate.

Check out Sarah's website iquitsugar.com

Ginger

Ginger is a useful spice, which will keep for a week at room temperature and about a month in the fridge.

• Use a teaspoon to peel fresh ginger - it removes the skin and leaves the flesh intact.
• Alternatively, freeze ginger whole and grate it straight from frozen (no need to peel first).

It is also useful in a healthy diet.

• Use it to pep up drinks, savoury dishes and desserts.
• Drink 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger dissolved in a cup of hot water. Over the next 6 hours you will burn 43 more calories than usual; you are also likely to feel less hungry and eat less during the rest of the day.

Did you know? In the 14th century, 1 lb of fresh ginger cost as much as a whole sheep.

Various sources

Avoid Identity Theft

Experian recommends taking these five key steps to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft.

• Always use secure, unique passwords for as many online accounts as possible, and ideally all of them. At the very least have a unique password for each type of service provider such as financial services, retails services and email.
• Don’t be tempted to open emails and links or attachments received from people you don’t know. If an email seems suspicious, contact the relevant organisation and don’t give out personal details.
• Don’t store account names and passwords on your smartphone, either in e-mail, as a note, or to ‘autocomplete’ when you open a website or app.  It will be goldmine for fraudsters if your device is lost or stolen.
• Be cautious and don’t add people you don’t know on social media websites like Facebook. Remember what you might consider to be unimportant information like your birthday, email address or dog’s name could all be misused by criminals.
• Monitor your bank and card statements and your credit report regularly – it will help you spot any suspicious activity as early as possible and avoid financial loss.

New item on BT Internet home page, 12 March 2015

Eating for Immunity

Your immune system helps your body get rid of bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi, as well as keeping potentially life-threatening cancer cells as bay. Overuse of antibiotics means that common infections and minor injuries could pose a threat to life. So what nutrients do you need to keep your immune system fighting fit?

Antioxidants: The best known is vitamin C, but vitamins A and E are also important. Eat more brightly coloured fruits and vegetables (e.g. kiwi fruit, citrus, green peppers).

Vitamin D: Manufactured in skin from sunlight; plentiful in the summer months, but the sun is too low in the sky between October and April in the UK for our skin to make it. Eat more oily fish (e.g wild salmon, herring, sardines, mackerel) and dairy products. For some people even this is not enough (pregnant and breast-feeding women, those who don't get enough sun at any time (e.g. because they are covered up) and those over 65) and supplements are advised. [See also these blog posts: ~ Vitamin D ~ More on Vitamin D ~]

Selenium: One of nature's most powerful immune boosters (immune cells need selenium to work properly) but the selenium content of soil in the UK is extremely low compared with countries like the US and Canada. Eat more tuna, beef, cod and turkey, and especially Brazil nuts.

Probiotics: It is thought that as well as helping keep harmful bacteria in check, they may also limit susceptibility to infection in the first place. It seems beneficial gut bacteria may have akey role in the development of white blood cells (immune cells that form part of the body's first line of defence). Eat more naturally fermented foods (e.g. tempeh, miso, soy sauce, fresh sauerkraut) and live or bio-yoghurts and cultured dairy products such as kefir (a fermented milk drink) and buttermilk. Supplements should contain Lactobacilli or Bifidobacteria in sufficient numbers - no less than 100 million.

Use Honey to sweeten drinks - just one teaspoon of sugar is enough to prevent vital macrophages and natural killer cells from doing their jobs for up to six hours.

Robert Hobson in Healthspan magazine, Autumn 2014

Fructose Facts

There are a number of 'sugars', which come from the plants we eat and cultivate for food - fructose is just one of them. The 'ose' in these names is a generic chemical suffix for sugars.

• Fructose: fruit sugar found in tree and vine fruits, flowers (and so in honey), berries and most root vegetables. Commercially it is derived from sugar cane, sugar beet and corn (maize). Our bodies don't produce it and in the past we only consumed it seasonally when fruit was ripe.
• Glucose: comes from starches like potatoes. Our bodies produce it from the food we eat, and every cell in every living organism on earth has glucose in it. It is vital to life.
• Lactose: a sugar derived from galactose and glucose that is found in milk (2% to 8% by weight).
• Sucrose (table sugar or sugar): a compound of glucose and fructose. Produced from sugar cane and sugar beet.
• High fructose corn syrup (glucose-fructose, fructose-glucose): This has double the sweetness of glucose. It is made from corn syrup - the glucose is processed to convert some of it to fructose.

In paleolithic times sugar was highly prized for providing instant energy (e.g for chasing prey) and extremely rare (a berry here and there). So humans evolved with no 'fructose full switch'. Now sugar is abundant, we have to make little effort to find it, and we eat too much of it.

Our bodies do not use fructose straight away as energy but in the liver (side-stepping the liver's fat-creation control mechanism) it is converted directly to fatty acids and then to body fat. When we drink fructose (e.g. in soft drinks and juices), the process is even more direct and faster. Glucose, on the other hand, is normally 'burned up' immediately after consumption as nearly every cell in our body uses glucose; the liver only breaks down around 20% of glucose.Recent research now shows that:

• Fructose inhibits our immune system.
• Fructose upsets the mineral balance in our bodies and interferes with mineral absorption.
• Fructose messes with fertility.
• Fructose speeds up the ageing process.
• Fructose has been connected with the development of various cancers.
• Fructose is linked to dementia.
• Fructose causes an acidic digestive tract, indigestion and malabsorption of nutrients.
• Fructose can cause a rapid rise in adrenaline, as well as hyper-activity, anxiety and a loss of concentration.

Facts quoted from I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson, Macmillan UK 2014. See the website https://iquitsugar.com/

Eco-toilets

Only 1% of the Earth's water is drinkable and we use 30% of that water on a daily basis to flush the toilet. There are now toilets that have no need for water, plumbing, sewage outlet, septic tank or cesspit - and can be put anywhere, even where you couldn't fit a conventional WC.

Ecotoilets (www.eco-toilets.co.uk) toilets are suitable for homes, garden rooms, allotments, etc. and require minimal maintenance. Because liquid and solid waste is separated, there are no foul odours.

Aerobic micro-organisms break down the solid matter over a period of time, and the process also destroys harmful pathogens and the anaerobic micro-organisms that create smells. The end product is a compost that can safely be used on the garden.

Urine, which is sterile, can be poured on to the compost heap or soaked or drained away.

To complement the dry toilets, Ecotoilets also offers the WHALE (Water from Households Aboveground Living Ecosystem) system, where grey water is piped from a dwelling through a series of 5 gravel and reed planted troughs and then recycled back into the property.

Newspaper Advert September 2014

100 Days to Change ....

The 100 Days movement focuses on making one change in your life for 100 days. Typical projects include: doing a 7-minute workout; painting miniatures, dancing every day, eat vegetables every day, practise 15 mins of Gernman vocabulary, giving up smoking - but it could be anything that you want to do.

The only rule is that you do it every day for 100 days. It has to be a challenge that means something to you, and ideally something that is going to prompt a big change in your life or something you've always wanted to be good at but never made the time for. Lots of people use it for a kick-start (20 push-ups a day then move into a whole exercise programme. Others move on to a new challenge.

The first 10 days are the hardest. It can also be difficult to keep it up later on, and there is always the temptation to skip a day. But often at the end of the 100 days it has simply become part of people's lives.

It may help to write down on a piece of paper what you will do each day of the commitment, and work out how you will continue the challenge if you are on holiday or you're ill and miss a day or two.

Check out the website: Give it 100

Bookmark Checkers

Q. Is there a way of quickly checking to see if the bookmarks I have in my browser still work, without having to manually check each one?

A. Yes - here are the main options (2012).

• Firefox bookmark checker add-on (only for versions below 16)
• AM-Deadlink for Firefox IE, Opera and Chrome
• SafariBookmarkChecker

Phil Bradley in CILIP Update, November 2012

Spell it Out

Spell it Out by David Crystal
Profile Books, 2012

Why is there an 'h' in ghost? William Caxton, inventor of the printing press and his Flemish employees had no dictionary or style guide to hand in 15th century Bruges, so the typesetters simply spelled it the way it sounded to their foreign ears, and it stuck. Seventy-five per cent of English spelling is regular but twenty-five per cent is complicated. In Spell It Out linguistics expert David Crystal explains how and why English is spelt the way it is. A fascinating read - especially if you feel you area poor speller or have children currently learning to read and write.

Telling the stories behind the rogue words that trip us up, he explains why they entered the mainstream. Some examples are that 6th century monks wrote using the Roman alphabet of 23 letters but added 3 more to cope with the 37 different sounds found in the Anglo-Saxon language; the arrival of the French in 1066 meant French spelling practice was grafted on; the Great Vowel Shift, which took place over 200 years beginning in the 15th century, cahnged pronunciation but we kept the spellings the same; later writers used the history of words (etymology) to regularise spelling; and loanwords from other languages  have spellings that often do not follow regular English spelling patterns.

David Crystal also advocates a new approach to teaching spelling. He feels that words need to be learnt in context and often in related groups: sign, signs, signing, signal and signalling - and which also demonstrate specific spelling rules - in this case when and when not to use the silent 'g' principle. Where words are often confused [principal and principle], he suggests the word used more frequently is taught first on its own and in context - principal boy, principal girl, school principal. Some spelling mistakes come from mispronunciation - pome for poem, libry for library, reconised for recognised - and this needs to be addressed.

[Note: It may be reassuring to learn that in practice four-fifths of English spellings conform to patterns we can readily see and that only 3% of English words are spelt in genuinely anomalous ways.]

Diet Tribes

A quarter of the UK population is obese, and the message of eat less and exercise more is falling on deaf ears. A BBC Horizon documentary examines the idea of personalised dieting. Using ground-breaking research they looked at how genetics and neuroscience help us understand what drives us to eat too much and put on weight, and how hormones affect how we feel. A group of overweightvolunteers underwent a range of tests (genetic, hormone and psychological (attitudes and emotions around food) tests), and were found to fall into one of three groups. After more tests and diet related actvities and advice, the volunteers then followed at home a three-month eating plan specially devised for their group. The aim was for the group to lose 67 stone overall, five per cent of their body weight. The results were impressive; between them they lost 103 stone. Even better, the volunteers agreed almost unanimously that they had found the right diet.

Feasters
Once feasters start eating they find it hard to stop. They never really feel full, so carry on eating. They produce less of a gut hormone GLP-1 that sends signals to the brain to tell us we feel full, so they eat far more before their brains get the message 'Enough'.

They need to eat food that takes longer to digest and keeps them fuller for longer - a high protein, low Glycaemic Index (GI) diet, without any portion restrictions. That means more lean meat like chicken, fish, eggs, nuts and pulses like lentils and beans, but fewer sugary foods, potatoes, bread and pastry. Feasters swapped them for pasta and grains like bulgar wheat that take longer to digest. The GLP-1 hormone is produced low down in the gut and is released in higher amounts by food that is digested more slowly. Eating slowly can also keep GLP-1 levels up. Try eating your meal over half an hour. Eat something you'd normally bite into (a burger, sandwich, banana) on a plate with a knife and fork. Try to have all meals sitting at the table (you'll eat faster if you are standing up).

Emotional Eaters
This group has problems with eating because of psychological issues. They turn to food when anxious, depressed and stressed to try to manage their emotions, in the way other people might have a drink. Stress and anxiety boost levels of hormones like cortisol, which in turn makes us feel panicky. 'Self-medicating' with sugary, fatty, salty foods in particular can stimulate our 'feelgood' response. But that triggers 'catastrophic thinking' - I've blown the diet, so why bother?

They need support to overcome fears and to believe they can resist temptation. They will benefit from joining a weight loss group or using online tools and social media to track progress and keep motivated. They also need to accept occasionally failing with the diet is not the end, and simply start again.

Constant Cravers
They are hungry the whole time and like to snack on things high in sugar and salt. They enjoy food and think about it a lot, grazing throughout the day. Certain genes interfere with the brain's understanding of our fat reserves. If it thinks we have less fat than we actually do, it tells us to keep eating. All the volunteers in this group tested postive for these genes.

Losing weight is hardest for this group. The answer is intermittent fasting - better known as the 5:2 diet, when you eat normally (but healthily) for five days a week, and the reduce calorie intake substantially on the other two days (Horizon volunteers cut down to 800 calories on these days but 500 or 600 calories is usually advised.) This makes the body burn up its fat stores.

Plateau effect
Most of the volunteers (and pretty well everyone following any diet) finds that weight loss tails off around week 8; this is due to metabolic changes. Those who are overweight have a faster metabolic rate than those of ordinary weight just for everyday activities. When weight loss goes below a certain level, the body slows its metabolism to stay at that weight. That is the time you need to do a bit more exercise to 'kick-start' the weight loss process again. 

BBC2 Horizon: What's the right Diet for You?: a 3-programme documentary broadcast on 12, 13 and 14 Jan. 2014