Dysfunctional Diary of the Matriarch-Elect

The other bit of recent excitement is that the Mongrel Taxi Driver and I had our long-awaited holiday in New Zealand. A good time had by all, and the precipitating event (ie. the excuse we had for going and spending all that money) went wonderfully. I refer, of course, to the wedding of Tony's cousin Luke and his partner Esther.

The wedding was quite beautiful, everybody cried, the setting was splendid, and the party afterward was a great, good-natured energetic knees-up. We spent four days in Dunedin (well, on the Otago Peninsula at Portobello, actually), a good bit of that taken up with wedding stuff, but still had plenty of time to see the sights. The place we stayed, Annette's Cottage, is a lovely little B&B owned by a friend of Esther's, situated on a farm overlooking Portobello Bay. Perfect spot, and highly recommended to anyone.

After that, we spent the next 12 days driving around selected bits of the North and South Islands. Well, the MTD pointed the car, and I planned the itinerary, checked the maps, navigated, watched for road signs and landmarks, found our accommodation, corrected Tony's all-too-frequent wrong turns, organised the day's activities, oversaw the packing, handled the accommodation arrangements, soothed the man's tantrums ... well, you get the picture, Standard Operating Procedure, in fact.

Being a taxi driver, he naturally has an unerring instinct, when confronted with a choice of direction to take, for taking the wrong one. This extends to parking lot entrances (always tries to drive in the exit), exits from roundabouts, and response to directions ie. "take the next left...this one...LEFT, I SAID!!" His record of wrong choices is far greater than chance would dictate, so some malign 'fluence must be at work, I suspect. Corbin would have been easier to handle, I reckon, and a jolly sight cuter. Still, not to worry, we had a wonderful time.

We forked out big $$ to do a Maori "cultural experience" at the NZ Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua. It was an excellent night, the full traditional welcoming ceremony followed by a purely entertainment-type performance, then a terrific 3-course hangi meal. Tony hogged out on all the seafood, of course, and I got to try venison for the first time.

The Waitomo glowworm cave was stunning, and we went to a very funny one-man show called "Billy Black's Kiwi Culture Experience". Billy Black is an ex-shearer who's a bit like the early Paul Hogan. It was clever and lots of fun -- I even got a picture of TMTD wearing a stupid hat on stage, wielding one end of a bit crosscut logging saw. The biggest news item in NZ while we were there was Shrek the hermit merino ram -- found lurking in the high country on Bendigo station in central Otago after having escaped muster for 6 years. His fleece was 380mm long and weighed 27kg. He was sheared on national prime-time TV, and the program was the second highest rating ever. (What does that say about NZ, I wonder?) It was the funniest thing I've seen -- a large bale of wool with 4 small feet protruding.

We had a Close Encounter at "Sheepworld" (don't you love it?) -- we decided to stop there because they had a cafe and we were choking for coffee. Just driving up the circular entrance dirve, to be confronted with a farmer-type man running toward us madly waving go back, go back -- with a mob of sheep running behind in hot pursuit. As we hastily reversed he turned to the mob, jumped in the air and waved his arms frantically in the air, whereupon the mob immediately halted, looking as confused as we were. It was quite a performance.

You can read about the trip on my New Zealand 2004 web page, and all the photos (and there are some dazzlers, if I do say so myself) are on Webshots.

Weather was pretty ho-hum most of the time, but that's the breaks, it's a maritime climate. NZ tends to be a lot like the UK in that regard. Least sign of cool weather and they're all in woolly hats and polar fleece jackets, lighting fires and turning on the heaters. Pah! I spent a lot of time snorting from the woodsmoke of a thousand reeking lums. The rain didn't spoil anything much, except we didn't get to do a heli-lift up onto the glaciers at Mt Cook because of low cloud.

We were mildly harassed by Customs people at home and in NZ, wanting to see TMTD's return ticket (he still travels on a British passport). "But it's an electronic ticket..." "What about proof of booking?" "It's in my bag". "Can you get it out?" (Struggle to retrieve suitcase, extract copy of return flight booking, meanwhile juggling cabin bag, passport, boarding pass, duty-free carrier bag etc). "Oh, it's okay, I see your husband's an Australian resident." YES!! That's why he's got a Resident Return Visa in his passport, by gosh! Oh, and his steel-and-plastic knees set off the metal detectors every time, so he spent a lot of time with security guards taking off his shoes and rolling up his trouser legs to show them his knees.

Got held up again on our return to Brisbane when the X-ray machine detected an unidentifiable electronic device in Tony's cabin bag. He wasn't sure what it was, either. I got there just as they extracted the offending package, which was a small toy top with electronic "laser light" effects I'd bought for Corbin at the last minute and tucked into Tony's bag.

On our return, the house looked like Brent had taken the contents of the bin and scattered them broadcast throughout every room. The cockatiel was dangling from his perch gasping for water and the dogs had spent most of their time prowling the streets begging. SNAFU and all that. There's no place like home, and the rest of the world is glad of it.

No, I haven't let the Dysfunctional Diary die of neglect.

I'm still here, and you'll no doubt be deliriously relieved to learn that my phone lines seem to be truly, really, actually fixed! (Although I am making a warding sign and spitting on the keyboard as I type this, lest I tempt the Demons of Stupidity to pour scorn and dysfunction on all Telstra installations within a 5 mile radius as punishment for premature ejaculations of joy).

On 1 March I got a call back from a droid called Brett from Telstra Complaints. We had a lengthy and entirely unsatisfactory exchange of views, consisting mostly of me doing my Assertiveness Training broken-record schtick, and him smugly repeating the duck-speak schmooze these types get taught in Customer Relations School. He sneaked in a whammy, though -- apparently Telstra has declared a "CSG exemption" for themselves for the period 24 February to 7 March, because the severe storms at the Gold Coast had caused major outages beyond their control. Little did it avail me to protest that I lived rather a long way away from the Gold Coast, and in any case the problems on my phone lines well and truly pre-dated the latest act of insert-deity-here. It seems that whenever Telstra has a rilly, rilly big stuff-up (as in, they no longer have a workforce sufficient to undertake urgent repairs let alone routine maintenance to stop ordinary stuff-ups happening), they simply declare it beyond their control and refuse to pay compensation to anyone within semaphoring distance of the disaster.

Had several return calls from a Customer Relations supervisor over the ensuing week: my faulty line had been "escalated to Stage 3". Meanwhile, a techie called around on 4 May, said he'd detected a "blip" in the cabling between the junction pit outside our house and the next one a couple hundred metres up the road, so he replaced all the connectors up the road and everything should be hunky-dory now. Ha! By the next day it was painfully apparent that my Internet line was still faulty, a matter I duly (ho hum, again) reported on 9 March.

A Faults Manager called me on Friday 12 March: the good news was that they were now going to do an all-out search and destroy mission on the fault. And the bad news -- that wouldn't be until 22 March. Meantime by 16 March the line to my computer had gone completely dead.

The two techie guys did show up first thing on Monday 22 March, and it didn't take them very long at all to discover that the underground cable had in fact been partially broken at some time in the distant past, and 5 of the ten pairs of lines were damaged. They replaced the entire length of cabling between out junction pit and the one up the street, then discovered that the pit was no longer big enough to hold the new connection box. So at long last I had two working phone lines, and a temporary yellow barricade and a jumble of cables on the footpath*.

I've had a number of follow-up calls from Greg, the Faults Manager, making sure that everything is still working as it should, which just goes to show that the key to getting Something Done is getting to talk to the person who's actually responsible for doing it. As for any compensation, I dislike the prospect of anoxic brain damage so haven't held my breath. I think I'll face that battle when the next bill comes in.

*(POSTSCRIPTUM: The new pit was finally installed last week, 4 May).

More bloody Telstra stuff-ups!

Tuesday 27 January, a bare 4 1/2 months after Party Line fiasco, our home phone line was utterly banjaxed again. Seemed like it might be a repeat of an intermittent problem we've had for years, virtually every time there is more than light rain, but this time the problem didn't go away within a day of the rain stopping. Reported the fault but didn't get the promised call back.

Phoned again on Wednesday, and was given the famous Customer Service Undertaking that a technician would attend to the fault by close of business the following Wednesday, a mere 8 days after reporting the fault. Not happy, Jan. I indicated that I wished to register a complaint. To cut a tedious story short, scheduling a tech to attend was accelerated, a bloke who seemed to have a clue turned up on Friday afternoon, but it was raining so he had to down tools until the rain stopped. He turned up again on Saturday, and went to considerable lengths to identify and sort out the fault, eventually having to allocate a new line in a completely different block at the exchange (whatever that means). He mentioned that the connectors from the main Telstra cable were corroded: a linesman would have to come to fix that, and he'd put in the paperwork to get it done. Good-oh. Phone fixed.

Less than 2 weeks later, my Internet connection snafu'd. Couldn't stay connected for more than a few minutes, or else couldn't connect at all, or could connect, but not to the mail or news servers. Bugger! I wasted the best part of a fortnight checking my PC for viruses, spyware, modem problems, changed configurations, illicit downloads, yet another PigPond crash etc, and finally satisfied myself that the problems was in -- yep -- the phone line (I have a separate line for dial-up internet access). Tested the theory by trying the line with the laptop -- same problem. Connected a phone handset, and found the line very noisy. Tried connecting both laptop and PC to the home phone line -- no worries. Okay, it's definitely the line that's the jinx.

Duly reported the fault to Telstra on Friday 20 February (I reckon I know the names of all the Customer Service droids by now), and wonder of wonders! they promised to have a service person call by c.o.b. Sunday. Good grief. And even more miraculous, the tech arrived before 7.00am Saturday morning. He replaced the corroded connectors, pronounced the line clear, had me fire up the Internet connection, and left. Five minutes after he left, the internet connection crashed. Back to the drawing board.

Rang Telstra yet again, on Tuesday, whingeing vociferously that the fault was still there. A technical specialist wasn't available, but one would call me back by 2.00pm Wednesday. Yeah, sure. So of course I was back on the phone to Telstra on Wednesday night, asking (quite reasonably, I thought) what the hell had happened to my call back. The nice droid assured me this time that a technician would call to my home between 10.00am and 3.00pm on Friday. Okay, no worries.

By 2.30m Friday, with no sign of the tech, I found a message on the answering machine. So sorry, the tech wouldn't be coming today, but he'd definitely be there next Thursday. Only 9 days after I reported the fault. Now look, I live in a large-ish provincial city, only 45 minutes by road from Brisbane. We're not exactly in the sticks. I can walk to the telephone exchange from my house. WHAT IS THE BIG FRIGGIN' PROBLEM HERE??

"Incandescent with rage" probably best fits my state of mind by then. After a very frank expression of my views to the droid -- and I was not rude, I am never rude to droids, and she did the best she could in the circumstances -- I have AGAIN been assured that an official complaint has been lodged, they'll discuss compensation with me for loss of income, and the line supervisor would call me back with an explanation for the cancelled visit. Sure, sure. Naturally, all this will occur within 2 "working days", but for the life of me I don't know now how Telstra measures working days. Their Customer Service Guarantee doesn't seem to mean a thing: if it did, then I'd have been compensated every time they took more than 2 working days to attend to a reported fault. Ho ho bloody ho. Anyway, watch this space for the next installment.

Oh, and to add insult to injury, I did some checking on what Optus had to offer. 'Yes' ! The prospect of transferring all our telecommunications services (home phone, Internet connection, pay TV, mobiles, the works) to The Enemy had finally become a viable alternative. But wait...even though I saw, with my own eyes, the Optus cables being installed in our street: even though my next door neighbour has Optus cable TV -- they tell me that Optus cable services aren't available at my address??? Again, no sensible explanation as to how this could be, but they would send out a van to do a drive-by to check. Oh yeah. Drive-by, hey. Well, they sure kill me. Still waiting for the (no prizes for guessing) call back. Too bad that the zero-cost installation offer expired yesterday. Nice that Optus obviously doesn't feel at all threatened by what the press is describing as Telstra's all-out cost-cutting war for the broadband internet market.

So, who has a third-world telecommunications industry that seems to be fit only to provide 2 tin cans and a string to disgruntled customers? Who has a government that is still trying to convince its citizenry that complete privatisation of telecommunications is a Good Thing for all of us? And who keeps on paying top dollar to be force-fed bigger and bolder lies by these cost-cutting, downsizing, executive-bonus-awarding gifts from heaven to the advertising and sharetrading industries? We do, Chucky, we do!

A pox on the lot of them.

...My parents brought forth a baby girl with a head like one of those jack-o-lanterns the Merkins carve for Halloween. The homely but nevertheless winsome tot grew up to become the Matriarch-Elect, who today commemorated her 49th birthday. Good lord, 49, and I still feel as though I've barely recovered from adolescence. And if I felt a little glum, the Aged Parents looked even glummer at the realisation that their baby girl had entered her 50th year (and well they might).

Still, I enjoyed the day. Nice lunch at the Yamanto Tavern -- nothing special, but good pub food at reasonable prices. The bistro decor was a passable attempt at casual chic, but the exterior was somewhat marred by the Harley hogs parked near the door, one of which was equipped like a ute, with a wooden tray back -- intended, I suspect, to facilitate the rapid relocation of cooking equipment. Whizz to Go, Deals on Wheels, that sort of thing.

I did quite well in the pressie department (well, that's the point of birthdays, isn't it). Book voucher and three cool books, a CD, a repro lithograph of Ipswich c.1870, some interesting lacquerware noodle bowls, and several pairs of enormous chopsticks. The latter have me puzzled: either they're intended as cooking implements, or else the inscrutable Oriental characters printed on the packet actually mean something like "Ha ha, gag chopsticks, amaze your friends!!" The books, by the way, are Simon Winchester's "The Meaning of Everything", the Jetlag Travel Guide to Molvania ("A Land Untouched By Modern Dentistry"), and the Ignobel Prizes. The book voucher has been exchanged for Minette Walter's latest, "Disordered Minds", and Barbara Vine's "The Blood Doctor". Reviews of these will appear on my book review page www.oocities.org/vickips/reviews.html as soon as I get the appropriately-shaped tuit.

Father, too, has had his share of Birthday Cheer. Vic turned 70 on the 9th, and Mum marked the occasion by hosting a very nice lunch at "Caffe Latte", a French provincial-type restaurant just up the road. The chicken breasts with mushrooms in mustard cream sauce were delicately luscious, and the boeuf bourguignonne to die for (which Tony nearly did, the pig). We'd been given orders that there should be joke gifts only, which naturally this family found easy to comply with. Apart from a magic mirror and a giraffe cap, Dad acquired John Clarke's "Even More Complete Book of Australian Verse", which establishes that every great poet in history was Australian, and had me literally in tears of laughter, especially "Lines Composed Halfway Across Pyrmont Bridge" and the offering by Khalihliji Bran. He's a wickedly clever man, that John Clarke. You can check out the photographic evidence of the day on my wibble.

Back to work last week: everything in status quo, more or less. Roll on pay day.

After yesterday's hasty blog, I thought I'd have a quick look back over what I've posted so far, and fill in a few missing bits. Actually, there isn't much to fill in: what a bloody boring life I have. Anyway:

NEW YEAR'S EVE 2003: Had a very pleasant evening at the home of Sue and Joe at Woodend. Joe did his annual thing with the Weber BBQ and a glazed leg of ham: this magnificent piece of piggy succulence, served with an assortment of sumptuous salads and vegetable side-dishes, with cheesecake and pavlova for afters, made for a truly splendid meal, eaten casually on the verandah while we watched for the occasional illicit fireworks. The Boy rang me on my mobile (with Dad's assistance) just after midnight to wish me happy new year. Tony had a busy but not frantic night, and a good time had by all.

TAXI 1, WHEELCHAIR 0: I forgot to mention the high point of the mongrel taxi-driver's career to date. He hit a man in a wheelchair, around 1.00am in the morning of 25 October. Gentleman concerned was bruised but otherwise unharmed, although his wheelchair was a bit dinged up (as was the taxi). Tony was very shaken but
likewise unharmed. The reckless wheelchair user is a regular passenger, who'd been down the road to the pub then decided to get himself something to eat from the service station up the road (this is a major road, BTW). Rather than use the pedestrian crossing a bit
further up (which has stop lights) he decided to cut across the road diagonally. At 1.00am. Wearing black. In a wheelchair. And tiddly. And he saw the headlights approaching but thought he'd chance it.

All Tony saw at first was the fellow's yellow glove (to protect his hands while propelling his chair) at the edge of the range of his headlights. Remarkably, he was able to brake sufficiently to have almost stopped when
they collided. The young chap was tossed out of his chair and onto the bonnet of the cab before hitting the road. Thank god it wasn't worse, is all I can say.

COFFS HARBOUR AND BACK: Tony's trip to Coff Harbour with Cecily and the boyo went very well. Auntie Anne was thrilled to see Tony, and to get acquainted with the young fellow. As far as the young fellow himself was concerned, he was more impressed with having fish and chips for dinner at the Coffs Bowls Club bistro, then going up the road to the Hoey Moey and playing pool and air hockey with Mummy and Grandad. His ambition now is to play air hockey when he grows up. Oh, and he thinks a billiard table is a "swimming table" (pool, get it?)

TELSTRA AFTERMATH: After the crossed line fiasco in September, my gloomy predictions about the phone bill were realised. Over $1,000 for the quarter!!! The young madam at the "Others' " place obviously spent every spare minute on the phone, calling pay-per-call information lines, old friends (STD, of course), mobiles etc etc. Anyway, after spending several hours analysing the huge bill (20-something pages) call by call, I got onto Telstra right away. It took me an hour on the phone, being passed from person to person, but I encountered no real argument in having all the call charges for the 8 day period in question struck out. A pity, though, that the charges would not be passed on to them as deserves to pay them. Bugger.