UnorthodoxY Archive It's wasn't what you thought

I get comments. Mostly they’re spam (you’ll notice a new Spam Karma 2 footer showing how many have been eaten.)

But sometimes I get surprising comments.

Remember my post about Aspray a couple of months back? Well, it’s now got an interesting comment on it, a snippet:

We at Aspray were very distressed to read the article ‘Why Aspray sucks’ and especially concerned for the person who had experienced such awful service from the company.

It is both unacceptable and inexcusable that they should be treated in such a manner and as the Marketing Manager based at the Head Office I can only apologise and reassure this person that we will be looking seriously into this matter.

You can read the full thing here. They also contacted me personally saying more-or-less the same thing. I should find out the results of the investigation and I’ll try and post what I can in the forthcoming bathroom saga wrap-up post.

But first, kudos to them. For either having the sense to search the internet for references to themselves or, if they were tipped off, for handling it the way they did. Their response is all someone could hope for, no cease-and-desist, no request to remove the content, just a well thought-out response that doesn’t attempt to avoid or deny the reality of my experience and it includes a promise to investigate further.

There are multi-national companies that could learn from that level of customer service and marketing expertise. Just the few minutes that it took to make contact with me has dramatically shifted my opinion of Aspray.

Well done.

Today marks the start of my 33rd year on the planet (making me 32 to save you thinking it through). You might expect that to have some effect on me, but no. I’ve pretty much ignored the relentlessly ticking clock of age since my mid-twenties. When people ask how old I am my mind thinks “around 24” while my brain desperately tries to work out what the right answer is.

Still, it’s a good excuse for a piss up. So I’m off to see what’s on at the festival.

Just to reassure you that being a year older hasn’t changed me, here’s a bonus edfringe.com rant. From the edfringe.com terms and conditions here:

Before providing a link to our site you must seek our permission. To do this, email Louise with details of the URL to which you wish to link and the URL of the page on which you will be displaying the link. We do not permit the display of our web pages in any html frame unless we have expressly authorised this.

What. The. Fuck?

You idiots. You’re supposed to be making it easier for people to link to your site, you want more visitors, even if the site is worse than last year.

Listen edfringe.com here’s a online-sales basic principal for you: You want to encourage links. As Yoda might say “links lead to traffic, traffic leads to ticket sales and ticket sales lead to profit”.

Even ignoring the monumental stupidity, and the complete unenforceability, of that clause it’s just not how the world wide web works. World wide web. It’s a web. With links. You twats.

Fortunately people either don’t know about the clause (I didn’t until festbitch bitched about it) or everyone ignores it. Or maybe everyone else already e-mailed and asked permission.

But I didn’t. Fuck ’em.

I will monitor my mailboxes, both real and virtual, with glee whilst awaiting my cease-and-desist letter.

If you live in Edinburgh you may have noticed little green ear-shaped signs attached to lampposts around the Leith area. There’s one at the bottom of Leith Walk, outside the Mermaid chip shop, above the sign talking about the drinking ban in the area.

If you’re like me you’ve probably thought “A green ear, that’s a bit odd, I must find out what that’s about” and then promptly forgot about it once you’re ten feet further down the road. But fate has intervened and I found the answer while idly surfing in an effort to avoid work.

The answer, it seems, is [murmur]:

[murmur] is an audio documentary project that collects and presents stories set in specific locations in Edinburgh (in this instance, throughout the area of Leith), as told by the residents of Edinburgh themselves. Ear-shaped [murmur] signs bearing a telephone number and location code mark the places where stories are available for listening. Use the map to find the story locations, and then use your mobile to call the number, enter the location code, and listen to [murmur] stories while you explore the space where the stories took place.

and just in case you think there’s some sort of premium phone rate scam going on:

Alternatively, you may also listen to the stories on this website by clicking the red dots on the map.

Interesting idea, I’ve listened (via the web) to the foot of Leith Walk one and it’s someone reminiscing about their childhood and what the area was like. Interesting, but not terribly ground breaking. I’m surprised they haven’t gone all Web 2.0 and allowed people to upload their own anecdotes but I guess they’re it’s more an art project than a web doodah.

Still it’s worth listening to if you don’t know much of the history of the area. And if you were confused by the green ears, now you know.