This one has been doing the rounds for a couple years, and despite Telstra never sending any call centre jobs to India, it is still very amusing…and without giving too much away, rather appropriate for this end of the sporting calendar.
For those of you who haven’t heard it before, this is a satirical look at what Telstra’s residential faults service might be like if the operators were in India.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/TelstraInIndia.mp3] Download link
And as this has been doing the rounds for the last few years, I should probably credit the creator, 2UE’s Mike Carlton. I disagree with Mike an awful lot, but I like his brand of satire.
With the election now just over a week away, I will be increasing production of Editorial Echoes for next week as I think it is very important that it runs every day next week. To that end, there will be one episode over the weekend, and then from Monday morning there will be an episode every morning until Sunday the 25th.
The even better news is that in the latter half of next week, it looks like I have secured a five minute interview with one of the journalists who have been following the leaders around the nation throughout the campaign. I’m not going to say who it is just yet as the day they appear will depend entirely on how busy they are, working for their employing media organisation, however I will give you a clue…they were one of the journalists visible on Four Corners on Monday night. That gives you a lot of journalists to choose from if you want to guess…
Also of potential interest, on Friday next week I will be conducting an Editorial Echoes street poll to find out who people will be voting for. This will be in addition to, but not associated with, the Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll which starts tomorrow on the same subject, and will be “broadcast” on Saturday morning (the morning of the election in other words).
I spotted plenty of online discussion about it last night and haven’t had a chance to check again today, but I have spotted news articles from 2GB’s Livenews.com.au and The Daily Telegraph have apparently run with it in their print version (update: it would appear that they have linked back here from the online article…thanks News Limited journos!). I’ve spotted these two mentions of the rather stupid error from Seven without even trying to find the story…so I can only imagine how many other places have covered it.
I’ll have to make sure I pick up a copy of today’s Daily Telegraph before the day is out.
And as I said to Stuart Bocking last night, I hope the Seven Network are footing the bill for changing the mobile numbers of the people affected by their error.
Update: An interesting point from Valkyrie on the Media Spy forums. Channel Seven sought an injunction against The Chaser’s War On Everything screening the footage of:
the layout of the production premises (described by the Chaser team on the film as “the temple of mediocrity”) and the planning of the “Today Tonight” program displayed on boards on the wall of the work area.
The injunction was granted by the judge because:
From the Channel 7 perspective, if the interlocutory restraint is not imposed its confidentiality will arguably have been invaded
And yet Seven broadcast and hand out “confidentiality invading” footage to other media outlets.
I probably can’t accuse Seven of hypocrisy when it comes to an injunction, but I do have to wonder. End Update
I was just listening to your interview with the lady from the Santa recruitment firm, I found it quite amusing when she said the standard greeting for Santa is "good morning or good afternoon young man or young lady"…I dare say that if Santa said that to me, I would have to ask Rudolph if Santa had been taking his pills.
On a more serious note though, I agree with you that Santa's "Ho ho ho" is not the most important childhood tradition despite was a supposed expert may think, however I still find the annual photo with Santa to be an important tradition to me…I accidentally missed out last year but I have no intention of doing so this year. Apart from anything else, it's a good way to keep track of the years in a photographic form.
I was just watching Nine News covering the story about Channel Seven taking out an injunction against the ABC program “The Chaser’s War On Everything” to prevent them using footage they gathered whilst inside Seven’s Martin Place building.
Channel Nine used footage of the stand-off between the Chaser team and Seven security which appears to have been released by Seven…sadly for Seven, the footage is mostly of the Chaser team in front of a whiteboard filled with names and phone numbers of Seven journalists.
I will be switching over to Today Tonight at 6:30 as they are apparently running the story, and it will be interesting to see if they broadcast the same footage.
Update: Yep, it was Seven footage…here’s a couple screenshots from Today Tonight. It looks like it was staff other than journalists that had their mobile numbers exposed.
There were other shots where the numbers were even clearer than these shots (click the pictures for larger versions)…one does have to wonder why Seven chose to hold the Chaser team in that location, film the events and then release the footage to the rest of the media, when there were many other more innocuous positions only metres away. In an industry such as the media, one would expect an employer such as Seven to be more responsible with the personal details of their staff. End Update
Further Update: I’ve forwarded this information to a handful of people including Stuart Bocking at 2UE. The reason I mention Stuart is that, not long after 8:30 he ran with the story, and rang a few of the people on the whiteboard (referring to them by first name only) on the air to alert them to their names and numbers being broadcast on national television. The first person didn’t answer, the second person produced a dumpable expletive and the third person was almost willing to have a chat, and made it clear that a number of people had already called him. I’m not sure if the second or third person said they were a freelance cameraman who had only been used by Today Tonight once this year. I’m uploading some video footage now.End Update
Firstly I would like to apologise to the people who have left comments over the last few days, and didn’t receive a response last night when I said I would reply. Last night after watching Andrew Denton interviewing John Laws I developed a headache and eventually got to sleep, only to find that it was much worse this morning. It wasn’t as bad as a migraine, but it was close.
One thing that bothers me from time to time is the way I worry about coincidence, especially when the coincidence is almost a figment of my imagination. This morning when I called in sick to work, it occurred to me that there was a ridiculous coincidence in that last night John Laws went on national television and mentioned how, due to depression, he sometimes calls in sick to work and claims to have a headache…and that the morning after he said that on television, I was calling in sick to work with a headache.
Whilst I knew that I actually did have quite a bad headache, and when I thought about it logically I knew that my boss would have no reason to doubt it, I couldn’t help but wonder if he may have had doubts based on the broadcast.
The thing that bothers me here is that I know that the coincidence is more of a figment of my imagination than an actual coincidence, and yet for some reason I worry and obsess about it. I suppose I’m concerned that if these “coincidences” occur to me, they may occur to others.
I suppose that as I generally have a fairly active mind, when I don’t have much to keep it active, I conjure up these silly things in an effort to keep my mind busy…whatever the reason, it is quite annoying.
On a different subject, does anybody have a copy of today’s (Tuesday) The Canberra Times? I spoke to a journalist from The Canberra Times on the phone last night after I sent in the photos of the Olims Hotel fire. I was informed that, whilst the photos would not be used, the story would appear as one of the “in brief” stories. The journalist was quite grateful for the information about the story, and the photos…and I was looking forward to purchasing a copy of the paper to see how they covered the story, but as I have been at home all day, I did not get a chance to purchase a copy of the paper.
So, if anybody has a copy of the paper that they no longer need, and would like to offload it to somebody who is willing to pay for it, please let me know. Update: Never mind, a friend who works in a petrol station at night still had a couple copied for sale. End Update.
Yesterday I mentioned that I would wait to see whether or not the weekend news reports were an accurate indication of what John Laws said about his depression during his Enough Rope interview before making any comments. As I said yesterday, my comments about Lawsie’s depression aren’t particular interesting, it’s just that when I was slightly depressed for a few weeks in the early part of this year, one of the people who made me feel better was John Laws.
As you’ve probably noticed, over the last few weeks I have been running politically themed polls. Next week I will be running a poll in the lead-up to the election to find out who people will be voting for. That poll will start on Saturday and finish late on Friday November 23, so that I can publish the results on election day. As such, the poll for this week will be a bit shorter than usual, and for that reason I’m not going to throw an election issue at you…instead I’m going to ask you a question which seems to pop up before just about every election:
I like the idea of compulsory voting simply because government policy and law affects everyone, and I believe that everyone therefore has both the right and responsibility to shape the government.
Last week’s poll was as follows:
Do you think Labor’s environment spokesman, Peter Garrett, was joking when he told 2UE’s Steve Price that Labor will change their policies if elected?
I think that was fairly conclusive. The majority of people believe Mr. Garrett was joking, but there is still quite a decent percentage of people who believe Mr. Garrett was being truthful.
John Laws will be interviewed on Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope program on ABC TV tonight. The interview is pre-recorded and News Limited papers have been interested in an apparent admission by Laws that he suffers from manic depression…it’ll be interesting to see if that actually comes out in the interview. If so, I have a small story about that…I’ll wait to see the interview before making further comments.
Apart from watching that, I’ll have a new poll tonight, and I’ll catch up on the comments you have all been leaving here for the last few days.
This week the award goes to Mike Oldfield, and also to the vocalist of the feature song, Maggie Reilly. The feature song this week is the 1983 song Moonlight Shadow.
Moonlight Shadow has been covered by many artists since then (and it’s a great song so why wouldn’t it have been?) but I found the 2002 cover by German Euro-trance band Groove Coverage to be particularly interesting. They, despite the modernisations applied to the song, remained fairly true to the original, but quite oddly pronounced the “a.m” part of the line “Four a.m. in the morning” as the word “am” instead of the acronym pronunciation “Ay-Emm”.
The last that ever she saw him,
Carried away by a moonlight shadow (shadow).
He passed on worried and warning,
Carried away by a moonlight shadow (shadow).
Lost in a riddle that Saturday night,
Far away on the other side.
He was caught in the middle of a desperate fight
And she couldn’t find how to push through.
The trees that whisper in the evening,
Carried away by a moonlight shadow.
Sing a song of sorrow and grieving,
Carried away by a moonlight shadow (shadow).
All she saw was a silhouette of a gun,
Far away on the other side.
He was shot six times by a man on the run
And she couldn’t find how to push through.
I stay, I pray
See you in heaven far away.
I stay, I pray
See you in heaven one day.
Four a.m. in the morning,
Carried away by a moonlight shadow (shadow).
I watched (I watched) your vision forming,
Carried away by a moonlight shadow (shadow).
Stars roll slowly in a silvery night,
Far away on the other side.
Will you come to terms with me this night,
But she couldn’t find how to push through.
I stay, I pray
See you in heaven far away.
I stay, I pray
See you in heaven one day.
Far away on the other side.
Caught in the middle of a hundred and five.
The night was heavy and the air was alive,
But she couldn’t find how to push through.
I had a very strange and short dream last night about a lotto draw.
The dream started with the lotto machine just about to draw the first number, which was 44, it then went and picked out another number, and again it was 42…in fact the entire draw was filled with the number 42.
The lotto presenter did not seem at all surprised by the result although the government officials could be seen in the background measuring the lotto machine. The dream then ended.
Just in case you were wondering, most Australian lotteries have 45 numbers and draw out eight of them per lottery draw. To have enough of each number in the barrel to have a lotto draw in which the same number filled every position, you would need 360 balls in the lotto machine.
The second raiding of the vault for the day only just meets the tree month threshold rule for vault posts. From the 24th of July this year, it WIN Television’s tribute to Peter Leonard.
WIN Television’s Tribute to Peter Leonard
July 24th, 2007 at 12:36pm
Here’s something I’m well overdue with, the tribute WIN Television produced for Peter Leonard.
I’m also privileged to be able to bring to you a report on the party WIN held for Peter following the bulletin, filed a short time ago by former WIN, and now 2GB, reporter James Goodwin, for which I thank him immensely.
At the end of the bulletin, past and present colleagues filled the WIN boardroom to reminiscence and share a drink with Peter. Channel 7’s Samantha Armitage and former weather presenter Tony Lynas were among those who flew in especially for the event.
There were a few brief speeches, New South Wales News Director Stella Lauri thanked Peter for his commitment to WIN, Jessica Good spoke on everyone’s behalf when she said how much she’d miss Peter, and Peter’s long-time on-air partner Phil Small had everyone laughing with his witty speech, peppered with many “in-jokes”.
Peter was overwhelmed by the number of people who came to wish him all the best in his retirement, and spoke with affection about the “terrific people he’s worked with”.
One of the highlights of the night was turning on the television in the boardroom and watching the ABC news and then Stateline. People were speechless when Stateline opened with Peter in the chair and saying “Hello and welcome to Stateline, I’m Peter Leonard”. It was all a friendly joke and a nice tribute to Peter. The laughs continued when Peter threw to a story “about me”.
One of Peter’s farewell gifts was the original WIN Television flag that flew in front of the Kingston studio. By the end of the night the flag was filled with everyone’s signatures and well wishes.
Usually I submit my annual income tax return in late July or early August but this year I managed to leave it until the morning of the due date. I ended up submitting it via E-Tax at about 2am on Wednesday October 31.
As a result I wasn’t expecting to hear back from the tax office for weeks, so I was very surprised when I received the refund in my bank account in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, which means it only took them four business days to process it.
All I can say is that I am astounded by the efficiency of the Australian Taxation Office, and can only congratulate them and thank them for it.
I’m a bit behind with these vault posts, so I think we’ll have two today to catch up, and to start with we’re going back to the 29th of August, 2005, and an incident where I managed to get a staple in one of my fingers.
I Stapled Myself
August 29th, 2005 at 09:45pm
This evening I finally got around to making a 2CC poster to attach to my school bag. I tried many different ways of attaching it to the exterior of my bag, including multiple sticky tape attempts. Unfortunately all of these attempts were unsuccessful, so I decided to use staples. I got the stapler and realised it was empty, so I filled it and proceeded to staple the corners of the poster to the bag.
The top corners were easy as the stapler reached the corners around the zip. The bottom corners however could not be reached by the stapler and I instead had to unfold it and put something behind the paper to bend the staples in place and make it easier to staple. I used a metal ruler, however the first staple I did that way caught me with the ruler slightly out of position and my finger in position, so I ended up with a staple in my finger which, needless to say, hurt.
I eventually got the staples in the right places and I now have the following half-A4 poster stapled and taped to my bag. (Some of the tape couldn’t be removed after it stuck to the paper, so it is now providing extra support.)
Samuel
Entry Filed under: Samuel News, TV/Radio/Media
6 Comments
1. Kerces | August 30th, 2005 at 12:51 am
Is your finger all better now? Or is it gross and gangrenous?
K
2. Samuel | August 30th, 2005 at 10:49 am
Still hurts a bit, and the Band-Aid is preventing me from using my finger much because I can barely bend it.
I should have pointed out that it is my right index finger which got stapled.
I’m trying to keep it dry which isn’t easy at times…and mostly limits me to one hand when using water.
3. eebl | August 30th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
Samuel, I hate your radio presenters. Bunch of wankers. But i’ll respect your taste because, sam, you’re awesome.
4. Samuel | August 30th, 2005 at 9:58 pm
Interesting statement, just wondering, why do you think that of them?
I take it you don’t like them and I respect that, I’m glad we can be democratic about this.
5. eebl | August 30th, 2005 at 10:10 pm
Well, my statement was rash. I just saw John Laws and went for it. But I dislike Laws because of certain view he holds, mainly spurting right-wing tosh and spreading fear and hate within the masses to please one person – John Howard.
I saw laws and figured the rest were in on it.
6. Samuel | August 30th, 2005 at 10:30 pm
Fair enough. Can’t say that I neccesarily agree with you, but that’s what makes democracy good.
To my knowledge, at least one of those presenters don’t get on with Laws.
