Thursday, May 18, 2006

Phil Spitalny or Ivy Benson*

Feeling a bit deflated after twin disappointments last evening: Sondheim was not up to his usual standard. To be fair to SS, although he has written some fantastic scores, eg. A Little Night Music - Send in the Clowns etc.- his fame is as a lyricist – West Side Story for example. But Sunday in the Park with George? Not exactly whistleable music, but full marks for acting and plot, 80% for singing and 150% for the set – which actually plays a big role in the show if you see what I mean. Still, four out of five ain’t bad.
Speaking of scores brings me to the other disappointment of the evening. Coming out of the theatre we came across a bunch of guys in Arsenal shirts – singing. Expecting happy news, we asked: Arsenal had lost 2-1 - the guys had been drowning their sorrows. Having your goalie sent off after 23 minutes is not only bad for team morale – it makes it easier for the opposition to score.

Promised I’d tell the Broadband saga, but it’s too long. All right, just a taste: got back from sunny Riviera to find we had lost Broadband contact with the ISP. The British Telephone lines had gone down. They fixed them in three days – a service which from big corporations these days verges on the acceptable, but Bb hadn’t come back up, which meant having to call the ISP's Technical Support - guaranteed to bring on Weltschmertz and feelings of deep inadequacy, especially as DG had already been talking to them for three days and was beside herself, which is a very uncomfortable position. (Typical questions: What colour is the cable from your ADSL socket? How long is it?) Rather than attempt to make progress where she had failed, I called on a friendly network consultant but the network was anything but friendly and he didn’t manage any better.
That’s all I’ll say about our two weeks in solitary - two days of which were our fault because of other crises. We’re working now, as you can see, and the ordeal by geekery is almost forgotten and plans to switch ISPs temporarily on hold. What was the problem? No one knows. We think it was the BT Bb line – a BT engineer came but said he didn’t know anything about broadband. But isn’t it the ISP’s job to get it fixed?

* - broad band

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thinnk you're better off not knowing what went wrong. IF they told you they might have to kill you. OR something.

Cliff said...

Leaping to the defense of the ISP in question, when you people who own the phone lines operate a rival ISP, the aren't exactly going to bend over backwards to:
1. Diagnose faults to people who aren't their customers.
2. Admit it was their problem the whole time.

Anonymous said...

But I don't own phne lines, or operate a rival ISP, either, and nobody's bending over backwards to help me!
( Not that its' all about me, mind you. I've come to accept that. )

June 18- McCartney's 64th birthday, no one to need him or feed him.
June 19- something fanTAStic is in the air, I can smell it. I can hardly WAIT!

Anonymous said...

Agreed Cliff - see your blog on complexity of modern life. SW trains complain about tracks, online stores blame Royal Mail, politicians blame previous administration etc. But it's long been a principle of commercial law that you can kick arse or ass of the guys you pay.
Ed, 6/18 - a Norwegian would
6/19 St David's Day - National Day of Wales?