Telecom has become Spark, but its bosses should be fired if they can’t revive their internet services

Good luck, Grumblers.

Catching up with Alf’s latest profound observations on the life, the universe and everything could be somewhat hit and miss today. At least, for some readers.

That’s because Telecom, nowadays operating as Spark, is not firing on all cylinders.

Here at the Grumble household we have been turning routers on and off, and turning computers on and off, and trying to get through to Spark via telephone to find out what’s up.

At last we were able to bring up the NZ Herald’s website where one of the first news items told of the country’s biggest telecommunications firm scrambling to fix an internet meltdown after an unexplained surge in internet traffic last night.

But when we clicked on to learn more we got the same old same old…

Firefox could not find the server.

The money or the bag? Don’t be silly – we’re indigenous and accordingly want both

Alf has already recorded his huge admiration for the way our indigenous people can sniff out a trough and get their snouts into the swill.

Another of their admirable traits is their gall.

Alf has known some Pakeha oinkers who would be embarrassed if they thought he knew of the extent of their troughing.

Our indigenous oinkers feel no shame.

To the contrary, they regard it as their right under the Treaty to have we Pakeha fill their growing array of troughs.

And if we don’t fill the troughs deeply enough or quickly enough, they will holler about the bloody injustice of it.

The Xtra fiasco: Yahoo! should be challenged to point to Eketahuna in contract discussions

Guess which one is the top Yahoo?

Gotta express surprise that it has taken so long.

Telecom is reported (here) to be reviewing its email service with Yahoo! in the wake of the recent hacking scandal.

Telecom chief executive Simon Moutter is understood to have spoken to Yahoo’s global chief executive this week, expressing disappointment on behalf of his 450,000 customers.

The surprise should not be that his customers have been experienced big problems.

It’s that nobody at Telecom had the wit to wonder about the wisdom of signing on with a company called Yahoo!

Telecom hangs up on 250 Kiwis

It’s not only the Government – the Labour one we dumped, not the splendid government we have now – that gets into social engineering. Or cultural engineering, if you prefer.

Today we learn Telecom’s call-centre workers in the Philippines “will be trained to talk like New Zealanders, learning slang words and mastering the Kiwi accent as part of a move to outsource 250 jobs.”

Outsourcing 250 jobs to the Philippines, of course, is a mealy-mouthed way of saying