8 march 2018

8 march 2018

John Bjarne Grover

The gas metre reading 2018

The gas metre in Szolnok must be read annually - there comes a person from the gas provider and reads it. For the rest of the year self-reading is accepted. The paper bill tells when the obligatory annual reading will be: This year it would be from 2 to 8 march. I arrived by train on 1 march to find the time point in my postbox - but it was not there. This means that I had to take a week's holiday to spend the time at the doorbell to wait for the gas reader. I could not take the chance of coming on 2 march, around noon, since then they could already have been there in the morning. Since the water was frozen and I could not be there in the chilly winter, I went back to Vienna in the evening 1 march and tried to contact the gas provider for time point by email next morning. There came no answer to the request before the evening 7 march, from András Balogh, leader of the customer care department, who told me that the hungarian law requires reply to such written requests as mine within 15 days (so he was quicker than needed). But he had no time point to offer. Had I taken an early train today 8 march, I could have arrived before the working day was over, but it is doubtful whether I could have found a reader before the day was over. But Balogh had given me three options for making a time appointment: Either by email or normal mail to addresses he specified (the normal mail to an address in 'Hajdúszoboszló'), but these would also take up to 15 days to answer, or a telephone number. I went out this morning to call that number and there was somebody answering there - I told her the problem and she said they had already been there (probably that meant that they had been to the house to read but it was closed - I dont know if the issue was settled by accept of my self-reading). I then asked if I could get a reading in the next week, but she said it was not possible - I had to wait for a letter sent to the house within 60 days, that would contain a telephone number I could call for making an appointment. (As far as I remember, I was in this situation earlier and then the time limit for reading was 5 days - one could get a metre reading in 5 days - but now this seem to have been altered). Balogh had written that if the metre reading is not successful, that is if the user denies them access to the gas metre which is their own property, then they can "deny gas supply in accordance with Act XL of 2008 on Natural Gas Supply, Section 16. If the annual gas meter reading was unsuccessful, the network operator initiates a repeated reading within 60 days". But if even that fails, like this time, the gas supply is probably in danger.

The reading was scheduled to be between 2 and 8 march. Then the exact time point would, according to my opinion, have to be there at the latest on 1 march - but there was no time point in any of my postboxes so there was no chance to have it read except by spending a week waiting for the doorbell to chime. Written requests for a time point take up to 15 days and telephone requests can take 60 days.

I wrote back to Balogh: "Thank you. I have a suggestion: Requests for time point for gas metre reading can be done on an interactive web page on the internet, and the web address for finding this page can be printed in the paper bill. When the web page opens, one fills in email address or SMS for receipt that can be sent to the customer, plus ID number, gas metre number, address and name etc. Then one asks for a time point - could be within a certain optimal interval of days - and the page responds with e.g. 3 alternatives and the customer ticks the box of the one which is best - or if none can be used, try again, another 3 alternatives etc. When a suitable time can be agreed upon, the customer ticks the button 'okay' and a receipt is printed on the screen and can be saved and it is sent automatically to the email address or SMS which the customer has entered. This makes it very easy to find a time point and one does not have to set off one week's holiday for the project and hang around the doorbell most of the time".

This is a matter of logistics - they have 10 cars and 20 readers and a certain number of addresses to read within a certain time span - the customer has a certain number of days and time points available - the computer finds the optimal solution for both parts very quickly and then one does not have to be squeezed between the paragraphs.

It seems that the billing firm 'Nemzeti Közmüvek' (www.nemzetikozmuvek.hu) is new by 2018 (last time, in late 2017, it was called 'Fögaz', could be it was 'Tigaz' even before that) and there is a parliamentary election coming up on 8 april or thereabout. Could be I will have to close the gas account to avoid political involvement or squeeze.

Balogh added: "Please note that Tigáz-DSO Földgázelosztó Kft. initiates control readings quarterly; however, the meter readings registered during these readings are not forwarded to our company and they do not form the basis of billing". This could suggest that what used to be a 5-day limit for requesting reading applies to such quarterly control readings only - but these are apparently not accepted by the new billing firm 'Nemzeti Közmüvek'. Therefore it is possible that appointments MUST be made but that 15 and 60 days intervals obtain for answers to these requests. Or one must stick to the doorbell for up to a week's time.

I make for myself the following observations: Balogh writes that the gas metre is the property of the gas provider. That must mean that there is a small turbino propella inside it which generates enough el to send via a SIM-card the metre number and the metre reading to a nearby link - 30 bytes once a month or every third month - very little el is needed for that. The gas provider has the right to inspect the metre with the propella once a year or so, but clearly if the metre readings sent automatically in the district sum up to the underearth metre readings (the big metres under the asphalt - where the big gas pipes are) then there is no need for checking it. If there had been a problem with the turbino propella, according to subterranean deviations, then there would have been a time point for me in the postbox on 1 march, but since there was no time point there on 1 march, it means that things were ok and no need to check it - and then my self-reading can be accepted since it is in accordance with the big metres under the asphalt. However, there is no such mention of telereading anywhere and so the threat of closure of the service will be there.

I add that the residence permit is issued with birth name of official mother on it - I wrote 'Eidsvig' on the paper but it is given as 'Eidsvie' on the permit card. I think I made them aware of the printing error they had made. 'Nemzetközi Müvek' would have meant 'International Works', while 'Nemzeti Közmüvek' means 'National (Public) Services'. I also got a strange call from the Polgarmesteri Hivatal (Mayor's Office) for participation in a lung investigation at 'Tüdögondozó Intezet' allegedly situated at Hösök Tere in Szolnok - but I dont think there is such a Hösök Tere in Szolnok, only in Budapest. 'Tudogondozo' would be more like 'knowledge-mind' or 'mental' or something like that. There is this classic 'mock' of hungarian language called 'töltött pörkölt' ('filled stew' - filled, how do you mean?) which likewise could come out as 'toltott porkolt'. 'Ö-rike' means 'land of islands', like 'Sziget Utca'. It is not impossible that Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 'Archipelago GULAG' (1973-75) could have referred to this house of mine. The russian pisatelj.

There is also the fate of 'Fidelito' Castro (Fidel Ángel Castro Díaz-Balart), the son of Fidel Castro, who allegedly suicided (in a mental hospital?) on 1 february.

Gå ut, da = go out, then - as when the doorbell chimes.

A new chimney sweeper (BM OKF, not the former 'Filantrop') has also tried to gain access to the house, even if the chimney is closed with a cap on top of it and it is closed also at the bottom - there are no gas, smoke or fire connections to it.

In short, if this is intended to rewrite 'Spindlegger' to 'Swindlegger', it was not I who wrote the name wrong. Spindlegger was vice chancellor in Austria for 1223 days. On 13 october 2018 I will have been in possession of the house for that interval of time - 1223 days.

Sylvia Plath (from Boston) suicided on 11/2 in 1963, and JFK was shot at 12:30 on 22/11 the same year.

Robert Francis Kennedy died on 6 june 1968 after being shot the day before, while Anne Sexton (also from Boston) suicided on 4 october 1974. Both Plath and Sexton were allegedly asphyxiated in own gas. The difference with leapyear = 2311 days, without counting the leapyear = 2310.

Leapear = skudd-år = shot-year, like a leap-frog turning 1230 into 2310. Hence hours = days?

In this 'Boston-Szolnok' there is the Sziget Utca intersecting with Vasgereben = Eisenhower: His doctrine of 5 or 6 january 1957 seems to be 1223 months, weeks, days (factor 365.25/12 + 7 + 1) after the birth of Albert of Saxony on 23 april 1828. This Vasgereben is intersected by three smaller streets (in addition to Sziget Utca) - 'Tél' ('winter' = 'the white'), 'Rege' ('old' or king David) and 'Ösz' = 'autumn' Utcas. Dwight David Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan could be names from this small street - and clearly Tél-Rege-Ösz rewrites easily to 'Ösz-Tél-Rege' = 'Ös-ter-reich' - when only the 231-0 leapfrogs to 123-0 or vice versa. That is likely to be contained in the interval between the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Anne Sexton (from Boston - cp.'Szolnok', 'ßolnok', 'Boston').

Robert Francis Kennedy
Albert of Anne Sextony

'Vasgereben' = 'vaskegrepet' = 'the washing grip' = 'reinhold', hence 'Aktion Reinhard' - cp. 'Eidsvig Ragna' - of Hitler with the three death camps Sobibor, Treblinka and Belcez claiming appr 2 million jewish lives. I would never have bought the house if I had known about these things - if, that is, they really relate to the place historically and not only coincidentally. There is a certain chance that these are elements of 'power' that can be the target of interest from politics.

PS on 9 march: I don't know if the 'Nemzeti Közmüvek' is a well established firm or if it could have been established for the special circumstances - here apparently for the billing function only - hopefully for more customers than only me on a Treblinka background. It seems that the gas provider could be Tigáz as before - and even that these could have their own metre readers as before - but the apparently somewhat unflexible logistics as far as reading time appointment is concerned could derive from the law allowing (I would guess) the billing firm to insist on their own metre readings. If it should come to be difficult for me to be at the house just when the metre reader from the billing firm is there, then it can be that they will come to close my gas account. But that could be somewhat political, I would guess.

Midori has recorded Mendelsohn-Bartholdy's violin concerto which was my sleeping medicine as a child - a sort of Rohypnol for children. (For 'Felix Mendelsohn-Bartholdy' cp. also the name of 'Fidel Ángel Castro Díaz-Balart'). If the Rohingya crisis addresses my PEB line 6 via the HTML lack of 'tabulator', there is the inherent connection to my TEQ book 6 called 'Orphan and the angels' (1999). Chief of the hungarian Fidesz party is current prime minister Viktor Orbán.