Our telephone is suffering from Weekend Failure Syndrome.
For two weeks running the advent of Friday evening produced only fuzzy interference from the phone; that mist of sound that used to accompany the inadvertent switching on of a TV set back in the Bad Old Days when broadcasts were only made in the hours that Aunty Beeb decided were suitable for well regulated families. Bring back ‘The Potter’s Wheel’ say I!
This time however we decided to take action. Toni’s preferred form of attack is via the Internet.
This is an institution in which Toni has much faith. I think it is on the basis that any organization which can create a mystique of infinite sagacity linked to ubiquity yet retain aspects of inscrutability and callous indifference is as near as damn it to a religion.
The Internet also has the playful ‘wanton boys’ approach of a callous god to its adherents. Sometimes a prayer (or information request) will be answered with exactly what the initiate is looking for, yet at other times the ‘answers’ offered rival the Delphic Oracle in their incoherent impenetrability.
There are also different sects on the Internet where the disciple’s simple plea for information will be answered in a number of pleasing formats where all look convincing and yet their answers are widely different in detail and fact.
Beware! For your adversary the teenage computer nerd prowls around creating convincing looking websites seeking whom he may devour!
Good and Evil constantly battle on the Internet. The Archangels McAfee and Norton are in an eternal battle with Demon Hackers and we all know that the wages of Internet sin, gazing upon lurid pornography, is retribution in the form of computer death by virus.
In spite of this Toni perseveres in his belief in the Internet, though he often echoes the cry of Saint Augustine, “O God I believe; help thou my unbelief!” His initial attempts to inform our telephone supplier that their supply wasn’t were via the Internet. The information needed was detailed and fiddly and eventually ineffectual. We had to phone the land line supplier using a mobile phone. This is nicely ironic but also vastly expensive as you go through the, “Please choose from one of the following twenty five options” etc before you actually get to a human being.
When Toni finally got to a human (”He was a South American,” he said darkly) he was told to “Wait a moment.” And was promptly cut off. The second human threatened vast fees if any technician had to do anything and gave vague assurances that something might be done. The simple checking of the line via a computer seemed to be far beyond the technical ability of the person (wherever he physically was) to do. I seem to remember in my Trimphone™ phoning the operator and she was able to check the line in a few seconds.
Such is the march of progress!
Today I have to compile the List of Shame: an enumeration of the sins of omission and commission committed by The School That Sacked Me. Toni also has a part to play in this denunciation as it has to be translated into Catalan. It will be sent to the Union for comment and then on Tuesday I will go into Barcelona and meet my union representative and have the list discussed and edited. Then it will be transferred to the official form and sent to the Inspectorate as an inducement for them to inspect the school. This is one of the ways that the various unprofessional ways in which the school conducts its business may be made more public.
The letter I have had from COBIS is an odd one informing me that no inspection is planned for the school until 2011! This is not what we were told: what has happened to the October inspection of 2008 not 2011? I think that I will check to see if there is some sort of code of conduct for those schools linked to the COBIS marque. If there is, whatever it is, the school must have offended against it!
I also think that it is time for a follow up letter to The British Council who should, by this time, have at least acknowledged the receipt of my missive.
For two weeks running the advent of Friday evening produced only fuzzy interference from the phone; that mist of sound that used to accompany the inadvertent switching on of a TV set back in the Bad Old Days when broadcasts were only made in the hours that Aunty Beeb decided were suitable for well regulated families. Bring back ‘The Potter’s Wheel’ say I!
This time however we decided to take action. Toni’s preferred form of attack is via the Internet.
This is an institution in which Toni has much faith. I think it is on the basis that any organization which can create a mystique of infinite sagacity linked to ubiquity yet retain aspects of inscrutability and callous indifference is as near as damn it to a religion.
The Internet also has the playful ‘wanton boys’ approach of a callous god to its adherents. Sometimes a prayer (or information request) will be answered with exactly what the initiate is looking for, yet at other times the ‘answers’ offered rival the Delphic Oracle in their incoherent impenetrability.
There are also different sects on the Internet where the disciple’s simple plea for information will be answered in a number of pleasing formats where all look convincing and yet their answers are widely different in detail and fact.
Beware! For your adversary the teenage computer nerd prowls around creating convincing looking websites seeking whom he may devour!
Good and Evil constantly battle on the Internet. The Archangels McAfee and Norton are in an eternal battle with Demon Hackers and we all know that the wages of Internet sin, gazing upon lurid pornography, is retribution in the form of computer death by virus.
In spite of this Toni perseveres in his belief in the Internet, though he often echoes the cry of Saint Augustine, “O God I believe; help thou my unbelief!” His initial attempts to inform our telephone supplier that their supply wasn’t were via the Internet. The information needed was detailed and fiddly and eventually ineffectual. We had to phone the land line supplier using a mobile phone. This is nicely ironic but also vastly expensive as you go through the, “Please choose from one of the following twenty five options” etc before you actually get to a human being.
When Toni finally got to a human (”He was a South American,” he said darkly) he was told to “Wait a moment.” And was promptly cut off. The second human threatened vast fees if any technician had to do anything and gave vague assurances that something might be done. The simple checking of the line via a computer seemed to be far beyond the technical ability of the person (wherever he physically was) to do. I seem to remember in my Trimphone™ phoning the operator and she was able to check the line in a few seconds.
Such is the march of progress!
Today I have to compile the List of Shame: an enumeration of the sins of omission and commission committed by The School That Sacked Me. Toni also has a part to play in this denunciation as it has to be translated into Catalan. It will be sent to the Union for comment and then on Tuesday I will go into Barcelona and meet my union representative and have the list discussed and edited. Then it will be transferred to the official form and sent to the Inspectorate as an inducement for them to inspect the school. This is one of the ways that the various unprofessional ways in which the school conducts its business may be made more public.
The letter I have had from COBIS is an odd one informing me that no inspection is planned for the school until 2011! This is not what we were told: what has happened to the October inspection of 2008 not 2011? I think that I will check to see if there is some sort of code of conduct for those schools linked to the COBIS marque. If there is, whatever it is, the school must have offended against it!
I also think that it is time for a follow up letter to The British Council who should, by this time, have at least acknowledged the receipt of my missive.
The wheels turn – but slowly.
All of my ‘action’ is turning into an exercise in patience!
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