Neil Pickford and KC have crossed lines.
"SORRY seems to be the hardest word," sang Elton John and some readers may think that I should be wrestling with that emotional battle at the moment – but I'm not.
Now some columnists object to being called boring. Others find it hard to take accusations that they might be biased, political, idiotic, out-of-touch or just plain raving, but I can cope with all that.
I'll even take ignorant – even when I'm not.
I realise that not all my readers share my point of view (even though I reserve the right to think they're grossly mistaken) but, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Back in my bad old days, I'd have probably been extremely angry, considering that anyone daring to challenge me was an upstart who should know better than to mess with their, um, betters.
Now, however, as I've got older, I find that the calming atmosphere of Beverley Minster is having an effect on me. As I vacuum the floors, move the chairs, restock the toilets and guide visitors around the building, my mind relaxes, any stress levels are reduced and clear thinking returns.
Sometimes it even prompts to me return to my original material and see if I was wrong.
Then, depending on those results, I calmly think how I should respond.
I am even prepared to publicly say sorry (although, obviously, I hate doing that).
And that is why I am responding to a letter from KC after my piece saying our wi-fi service in the minster was erratic.
It said: "Mr Pickford was mistaken in his suggestion that the minster's wi-fi service is provided by KC," which would seem to indicate I owe them a big, fat apology – but they're not getting one because that's not what I actually claimed.
Like most of you, we pay a monthly fee (in fact, several) for Karoo to be provided via KC telephone lines, and their own engineers tell us the signal strength coming into the building is leaping up and down like a yo-yo.
It's so erratic that we sometimes lose our internet connection on the virger's laptop, despite being physically plugged in to the router – particularly on a Sunday morning, for some strange reason.
We've spent a lot of money trying to improve things inside the building – we've had their engineers visit to inspect our lines and we're even discussing with KC about having a fibre-optic connection to make the service reliable.
But at the moment, it ain't working properly.Neil Pickford: by day a mild-mannered virger: by night…he walks the streets and tries to make sense of it all.
You can read more of Neil's various meanderings at his website • ThePickfordPapers
