Operator Please!!

And now, just as we learnt that out P.M for innovation and thought bubbles is now less popular than Tony ‘Flintlock’ Abbott, we hear things are not so good on the NBN superhighway. A telling fragment, tastefully edited to elucidate why copper to the node aint all it’s cracked out to be… From Cecil, the correspondence begins. The transcript has been edited to protect the dumb, innocent, and trusting…

Dear Ira
“Good God!  He lives! Ira is still with us”  was my first thought on receipt of your missive.

Deputy P.M Barnaby Joyce, " acting the goat". demonstrates prowess as bush vet, also adept at doctoring Hansard.

Deputy P.M Barnaby Joyce, ” acting the goat”. demonstrates prowess as bush vet, also adept at doctoring Hansard.

This should be read into Hansard, no less.
A sadder man, as I now am, would find little but pathos therein.   As was the undoubted point.
If we cared at all for your situation we would consider it for publication.
I think maybe I’ll send it off to our local member. Still, Ira, I am impressed at your patience and language skills.  I would have become apoplectic, whereas you’ve obviously maintained a high degree of inner calm.
Congratulations
Cecil.

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Ira at work with his ever reliable, Messenger Dogs, Barnaby, Corey, and Tony.

On 25/10/2016, at 10:35 PM, Ira wrote: My dear Bertie, (after the style of Edward the Seventh) My boys gave me a Samsung Tablet last Christmas. However, an electronic maelstrom has, for two whole months, rendered me incapable of of even the slightest form of avant garde  communication. ‘… like flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods, they kill us for their sport…’ Attempting to remove myself from Mansfield and repair to Tolmie, IPrimus (my provider) demanded I give myself exclusively to NBN.

Abandon (they said) your allegiance to ADSL and embrace the latest technological whizzo. In the hands of experts, what could I do? The expertly NBN man, when he arrived, unblinkingly informed me that, despite the aforementioned IPrimus blandishments, NBN was not a viable option at Sog Bot (His home, Ed).  His plethora of impressive equipment could find nothing to suggest I might benefit from NBN.

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Telstra technicians in the field.

Back to IPrimus. IPrimus promptly informed me that ADSL no longer exists in the Tolmie area.  So… no NBN. No ADSL, equals no phone, no email, no internet, etc, etc. etc. In the hands of madmen,  where  neither sanity or ADSL exist,  I am, with absolutely no reservations, at  my wit’s end.

I live in a Fire prone area,  a remote area, I live alone,  in an area where mobile phones refuse, absolutely, to function, and there’s no phone?

Time passed, whilst I gave myself over to contemplation. A retired Telstra engineer, sympathetic to my cause, suggested I give Telstra a call.

In the face of all the flim-flam,, following weeks of endless, shamefully, nay disgracefully fruitless telephone calls to enormously helpful ladies from foreign parts, during which I had, for weeks and weeks, neither phone nor internet, I spoke to an enormously helpful lady from foreign parts (ofTelstra) who promptly informed me that an ADSL phone would take 24 hours, and I could have the internet in about a week. It took a little longer than promised but eventually sanity was restored.

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Sympathetic Call centre operator

But for Gawd’s sake, WHY?  Why on earth did I have to go through this endlessly frustrating procedure? Who, which particular lunatic must I seek out and strangle? This shouldn’t happen, not now, not when this blasted technology is as clever as they tell us. This maniacal, endless, ludicrous result must, in the end, be laid at the feet of the demented,  Parliamentary buffoon who at first decided this ‘outsourcing’ had some merit.

Let me tell you something, Jack, whoever you are. The blasted system simply doesn’t  work.

I have been without phone or internet in a non mobile phone area for almost two months and  that’s not the way the game is played, not by a long shot. We pay good money for this service and, for the most part, keep our mouth’s shut about it’s inadequacies.  One day, and mark my words, this will all change.

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‘This maniacal, endless, ludicrous result must, in the end, be laid at the feet of the demented, Parliamentary buffoon who at first decided this ‘ outsourcing’ had some merit’.

One day, a disgruntled group of us, will demand action. We will demand more than action. We will demand, not to put too fine a point on it, your balls on a plate. Watch out for secateurs and Royal Doulton.
Ira Main.

Editor. A good thing the P.M for Ideas, thought bubbles and angry senate is onto industrial relations ,,, telecommunications is a flamin disaster.