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Yes, I've had no issues with Smarty over the past 18 months, and as you point out the monthly payment in advance is a handy way to limit liability. I use the calls and 2GB data deal where cost of unused data is refunded, and extra data if needed can be bought for £1 per GB. Not sure how quickly and effectively the "chat" only support could combat a porting fraud as described by Dora, but that is often reported to be aimed at high value targets where passwords have already been compromised. This has been a useful reminder to me though to check which of my accounts that were SMS 2FA will now accept use of authenticator app instead, and for those that still won't, check that a mechanism for recovering control exists.

Thanks for the information. I suppose someone at Giffgaff has to deal with O2, however I can see that might be better because I seem to get better response to broadband line fault problems from Plusnet than I did from BT, even though both of them presumably have to engage Openreach for the work.

It does sound like you had a particularly bad experience, possibly not helped by 3 closing their UK and india call centres in the early stages of the pandemic. It's also unfortunate that as a society we seem to have sleepwalked into using mobile number as a security token when the infrastructure behind supporting them was never designed to make this as secure as one would want for that purpose. I guess we all have our horror stories of customer service, my most recent one being the kitchen appliance supplier who offers a three year guarantee, but the first step is an engineer inspection of the problem, and they have no capability to inspect microwaves themselves in the UK, and nobody on contract to do it for them - we are about two months into an escalation at the moment. I wonder how much better the other mobile suppliers are though, once you are unlucky enough to have a problem. I know from experience at work that higher price doesn't always mean more is being spent on service, sometimes it just means higher profit for someone, or more wasteful incompetence. For what it's worth the Ofcom 2019 figures are:

They say: "The GO Windlass will not fit non standard sized tapered spindles found in some areas particularly on the Grand Union canal between Napton junction and Kingswood junction (which include Hatton and Stockton locks) and those around Calcutt. These tend to be the more modern ”kettle” hydraulic gates which have larger taper."

Not these days, OFCOM made rules to require providers to issue PAC codes within two hours of sending them an SMS: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/text-to-switch-simple-to-switch-mobile-network.

Moorings here:http://allingtonlock.co.uk/permanentmoorings.php I've seen very few narrowboats on the Medway. It is mostly GRP cruisers on the upper river, with sail/motor yachts on the lower river together with a number of (apparently static) barges. There are a number of large boats that look residential on Faversham Creek.

Seems likely. One estimate from the covid.joinzoe.com project that uses reports of symptoms, calibrated with testing a sample of those reporting:

Our old share boat had a second tiller bar with two right angle joints in it to lower it (by a few inches) for the shorter owners. I noticed that the geometry magnified the little bit of play between bar and swan neck, but it seemed to work well enough for those that wanted to use it.

They sell other stuff too...

It's a good idea to know you have the money to close a deal before looking seriously. Because it may take a while to find what you want, if you are going to live aboard it also seems wise to be looking six to twelve months ahead of when your other accommodation options aren't available any more. Transaction timescale may vary from same day of viewing (for cash or bank transfer without a survey) through to two or three months if you want a survey and have to wait for a surveyor and dry dock.

Six of one and a half dozen of the other really - if I accidentally leave a side hatch unbolted the marina guys can't secure it for me without a key for the padlock on the back; if water builds up due to a failed bilge pump they can't get in to address it without a key. But mainly my marina have keys to my boat so that they can let in tradesmen who I have asked to do work, or they can move the boat for blacking in my absence. That's really useful to me as I live around three hours travel away.

It is one of the many pieces of EC legislation to be enacted in UK legislation during the transition period as a result of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

Many freeware programmes can open and edit .docx files, e.g. LibreOffice: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/.