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A night at the opera: That Bastard Puccini! (Park Theatre)

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It’s hard to imagine that it’s only been 130 years since Puccini first premiered La Boheme. Nowadays, it’s a revered classic, and guaranteed to be on any opera company's annual programme if it needs to stay afloat. It’s a crowd pleaser with its melodrama of poor, impoverished artists loving, starving and dying in Paris. But Puccini’s La Boheme had a less auspicious beginning, with one of his contemporaries accusing him of stealing his idea and being poorly received on its first outing. And that’s at the heart of That Bastard Puccini! Currently playing at Park Theatre , writer James Inverne uses the friendship and rivalry between the two composers, Puccini and Ruggero Leoncavallo, to weave a comic tale of creative frustration with an awful lot of facts and tidbits about the opera scene at the time. It’s part comedy, part music appreciation.  It opens with Leoncavallo (Alasdair Buchan) at home with his wife Berthe (Lisa-Anne Wood), cursing about Puccini’s latest work, which is drawn ...
Some thoughts on Wanadoo as a broadband provider that I thought I would jot down and write to them about today after speaking to their tech support people (on the telephone no less).

A Letter to Wanadoo

As a new customer I would like to draw the attention of the Board that to the high number of failures provided by your company. I am sure I am not alone in this. I signed up with Wanadoo on 20 January 2006 for a wireless and talk package because it was competitively priced (not cheaper than others but competitive) and provided an easy means to register (online). Unfortunately, this was the only positive experience I have had with your company.

Wanadoo’s failures include:
  1. Failure to provide a basic broadband internet service. A call to a consultant today, 24 February, suggested that this is because your service is trying to connect a faster speed to what is possible on the telephone line. Meanwhile I will be a month without an internet service while you have been charging me for a service that I cannot access.
  2. Inconsistent advice provided by technical support staff. Call centre staff have been unwilling to accept there was a fault on the line and the first few calls I had to redo the same setup procedures as they would not accept that there was a fault.
  3. Misleading information provided by support staff. I phoned the technical call centre on 15 February and was informed that there was a fault on the line but that BT would take five working days to correct this. Calling back on 22 February, I was informed that I needed to call back Friday (that is, today) with no explanation provided as to why this was necessary. Now having very little trust in the advice provided I called back on 23 February and was told that if I rang back today then I should have a resolution of the matter. Today after ringing back I have been informed there will be another two working days before the matter is resolved. It is not clear if in my case a fault has been identified and that it is being addressed. Call centre consultants have said it is “stuck in the system”, it “was to be sent to BT but was stuck” or “it has been sent but has been stuck”. What they are really saying is your underlying company infrastructure cannot support your customers and is a failure.
  4. Failure to provide an email facility for reporting faults or correspondence. For an internet company, I find it unbelievable the only mechanism to contact Wanadoo is via the telephone. Furthermore, upon joining I was promised as per your own service standards to receive email confirmation that I was connected. This has not been forthcoming. I have had to ring up every time at a cost to myself in time and call costs. I have been promised call backs and these have never happened. I have had to put this letter in writing, as you do not have a published email address for handling complaints or enquiries.

And I thought Telstra was bad. I have a hunch however that I am not the only person out there dealing with their incompetence... Oh and I wish they would stick their country twang theme song in a place where the sun does not shine!

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