I was once asked to repair a projection TV set in a hotel and being more naive (and hungrier) than I am today, I attended the set to find that although it worked, it had no green. But the real problem was that it was switched on and the drinking clients were waiting to watch a world heavyweight title fight. The hotel manager had not mentioned this; he had simply told me that the set was in the lounge and left me to fix it.

However, as I started to work on it, one belligerent and somewhat intoxicated customer decided that I was about to damage the set and felt that it was incumbent upon him to protect it. I count myself lucky that I was able to get out of there without personally being readjusted – and projected!

Thereafter, I made it a strict policy: no house calls to pubs – ever. If they want their sets fixed, they can deliver them to me at the workshop and handle the delivery costs.

I have also been forced to apply the same policy to proper­ty managers and other time wasters. The scenario normally goes along these lines. It starts with a request to pick up keys from a real estate office (usually in a busy street in a long No Stopping zone) and go immediately to flat 27 on the third floor in an old building (with no lift) and fix an ancient unnamed TV set with an unspecified intermittent fault – straight away. They then want you to return the keys and submit your account for payment within 90 days.

Oh yeah! – if I’m lucky. And then only after them first questioning and whingeing about the cost.

Sets Covered This Month Thomson RP46 projection TV set Selco SVT 150 projection TV set Dual Digital Concept TV4170 TV set Sony KV-X2931S TV set

Many of my colleagues know how to deal with this – they charge like wounded bulls. Personally, I prefer to just politely refuse – it’s not worth the hassle or my time. If they want the set fixed, they can bring it to me and pay when the job is done, just like everyone else.

However, I did make an exception recently when Mr Schultz, a well-spoken businessman, asked me to attend to a rear projec­tion TV set he had just imported from Germany. It was a 117cm (46-inch) RP46 Thomson employing an ICC9 chassis, about four years old.

Apparently it had been working perfectly in Germany but the picture was distorted and blurred when workmen had unpacked it and installed it in its new location in Australia. A local compa­ny had sent a technician along and he reported that one of the boards had been cracked and that the set was probably a write-off. I was asked to check it out and give a second opinion on behalf of the insurance company.