Posts by Russell Brown
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DPF has outed you, Keith.
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My parents recall seeing a film that had to be screened to male and female audiences separately.
It was the film of James Joyce's Ulysses. That censor's decision achieved world fame, or infamy.
It was banned outright in Ireland, I think, and in Canada, the University of Toronto until 1955 required students to warrant that they were free of "mental problems" before reading Joyce's book, and other books such as the works of de Sade.
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There was some interesting footage of "80s John" on this Sunday's Unauthorised History of New Zealand ...
Paul Casserly is demonstrating what you can do if you enter the TVNZ Archive with your wits about you. Last week's glimpse of the 1972 Compass programme 'How to Win An Election' had me drooling. (The part with the Social Credit candidates being media-trained was priceless. You might as well have tried to media-train some potatoes.)
I really think they could afford to drop the irony and the funny voices and just go out as a really, really sharp archive show.
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I'm posting the following on behalf of a PA reader called Walter:
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I read with great delight, and some sadness, the post "Misconnection"This morning I signed up with Orcon to move our Phone/internet, after over 10 years as an ihug customer including a stretch with the wired country phone. It's rather a long tale, but I can't really shorten it much, besides writing it down will be rather cathartic!
About a 6-12 months (not sure exactly) after ihug started offering Wired Country connections, we shifted from a regular Telecom line and 56k dial-up to a 256kbps connection. In Glenfield we are a long way from the Sky Tower, but when the installer visited he said that the signal was "well in the green" and apart from going through three Cisco VoIP units before getting one that worked, everything was great and we were very happy. And gleeful at having escaped Telecom.
Unfortunately this stopped when the storm in March 2007 cut it off. We were without working phone for over two weeks (internet took even longer, and it was several months before we had all the systems - voicemail etc - fully working). The tale is harrowing, but we spent many days constantly ringing ihug, and even Compass direct (while still attempting to repair the wireless), then again constantly ringing ihug and Telecom direct (while attempting to get DSL to replace it). Ironically the technician who came to fix the antenna said the signal was below marginal and couldn't believe it would ever have worked (I believe transmission power for all sorts of services from the sky tower was significantly reduced across the board a few years ago, you may know more).
Many times during this process we considered telling ihug to go away, but the only option was to get Telecom back in, which was anathema to us, having tried very hard to be shot of them in the first place. Also, it seemed ihug were still the best option to get our phone & internet working in a hurry (and at their expense), most of the delays stemmed from the third parties, and Kane Treadaway at ihug was consistently helpful, albeit powerless to speed things up.
This weekend, about the same time as the cable was cut in your area, our connection failed again - no DSL, no dial tone. I rang Vodafone twice on Friday evening, both times I was cut off after about 45 minutes and before speaking to a live human. I then rang the vodafone mobile helpdesk (777) and explained my plight to the nice gentleman (I don't think he was Egyptian either!) - he confirmed that Voda/hug were unaware of any issue affecting Glenfield, so requested him specifically to get a message to the ihug team and get them to contact us. Needless to say they didn't and in fact it wasn't until 6:30pm (over 24 hours since discovering the fault) that we were even able to log a fault with the helpdesk - and were told a 24-hours time to fix. This was ok by us, it's pretty standard (although disgusted they hadn't received notice via the 777 guy). However nothing changed over the next 24 hours so Sunday evening we rang the helpdesk again, including being cut off in mid call and probably spending over 2 hours on hold.
Not once did anyone ever contact US .. and the Cust Service Reps all refused to put us through to a supervisor (and in fact we are still waiting to talk to one - although one did call but two hours later than promised when we were unavailable). Although as of about 3pm today things are working, I still don't if ihug actually know this. They certainly haven't let us know despite saying that they WOULD. In fact apart from relaying that Telecom Wholesale said they'd ATTEND to the fault by 4pm, nothing anyone at ihug/Vodafone has told us all weekend has come true. And I just tested 0800 438448 - the expected wait time is back up to 60 minutes. The appallingness is beyond belief.
I have no desire to give Vodafone (as they have now nearly become) a third chance to cock things up - so signed up this morning with Orcon - who also have ADSL2+ equipment in our exchange and thus give us a third option. It remains to be seen whether their reputation as an ISP is going to apply to voice services.
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So long, and thanks for all the fisks.
That's genius.
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I think weirdness is an insult to the moderately insane. This behaviour is off the chart nutter stuff. I am of the opinion that most of the posts on that site are fictional.
That possibility occurred to me too.
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Pff, Jackie, people look at me funny when I dance in the supermarket too - but why else would they be playing music?
I miss the local supermarket wars, when (pre-merger) Woolworths and Foodtown were both opens 24 hours. If you went there at 3am, you would totally see people dancing.
I refuse to comment on why I was at the supermarket at 3am.
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Far out. The whole thing is hideous. It smacks of a personal vendetta from a total nut job certifiable. A mate of mine is her cousin. I dont know her but nobody deserves that treatment. For some reason these idiots are utterly fascinated by the poor girl. WO even going as far as to suggest it was a political conspiracy against his website?? I am glad somebody else is thinking WTF??
That was kinda my thinking. She might have bullshitted, she might not have. The nation's future doesn't turn on it, and it certainly doesn't warrant the kind of weirdness in which these people are indulging. WTF is Saunders saying or doing about this? And her editor?
My only guess is that this is rooted in some sort of easter suburbs tory clan feuding. But ...
I wonder what we will all say when a young woman with her entire life ahead of her turns up dead.
Now you need to calm down. The best response to these people is to make fun of them. The possibilities are, after, all particularly rich.
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but you've obviously got time on your hands, I thought I was doing you a favour, helping you pass the time.
Rob, could you possibly look for a middle ground between needling other participants and having a persecution complex?
Arrggh ...
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I was talking to some one who works for a counselling phoneline today and she said they've had heaps of calls from women for whom this Vietch thing has been very "triggering". People are deeply affected when this stuff is in the news but you don't hear from them on forums like this so much.
Actually, if you look back (and I really don't expect you to) there has been a bit of "triggering" here too. I'm very aware that this thread has carried an emotional charge that most don't.
Personally I am pleased a formal complaint has been made. I hope justice takes its course but I'm not holding my breath
Just it going to court passes the "justice takes its course" for me.
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