Not so "Smart" after all

A few years ago, after experiencing considerable frustration with eircom, the dominant landline 'phone service provider in Ireland (a very long and tragic story that I won't go into here), I signed up with Smart Telecom, who'd launched amid a blaze of high-profile TV advertising and publicity. Their rates were competitive, and they had a nice feature called "Smart-to-Smart", which allowed all Smart customers to call other Smart customers free of charge, regardless of where in Ireland they lived. This suited me well.

Last Monday evening I picked up the 'phone to call my special "Smart" friend. I got a recorded message saying that Smart were no longer operating in the Irish market, and that I should contact ComReg, the regulator of the Communications industry in Ireland, for a list of other providers. No warning whatsoever! I contacted some newsrooms of national radio and print media outlets and heard different stories, some of them were not yet aware that tens of thousands of customers had had their phone service curtailed that evening and were unable to make any outgoing calls save for emergency ones.

The late evening news told us that Smart were in a dispute with eircom over not paying for their fixed lines, which eircom still controls. ComReg are supposed to monitor and try to solve such problems. So, as far as I'm concerned, they're all in the wrong: Smart for not paying their bill, eircom for abusing their position as fixed line providers to disable one of their high-profile competitors, and ComReg for not sorting it out before it reached crisis point.

Now Smart are no more, our lines have been temporarily restored (for local and national calls only), and we're faced with a choice: do we go back to eircom or plump for another private 'phone service provider? There are several such providers in the Irish market, each one claiming to have a better deal than the others. There is a site set up by ComReg which is helpful: www.callcosts.ie: here you can key in your usual usage and they'll come up with a list of the most competitive packages to suit your needs. A good service.

But there are other factors: do I want to support an Irish firm, for instance, rather than a UK or internationally-owned one? One Irish firm allows you to donate a percentage of call costs to your local GAA club (gaelic football & hurling); a nice idea and a worthy cause, as all players and trainers work voluntarily. Another friend of mine is an agent for another provider. She makes part of her living out of these commissions. Should I go with them and help to support her this way? Are these two "causes" more important than getting the best rate for my calls? And, if so, which one? Can I do both? These are questions I'll have to answer over the next ten days or so.

Watch this space!

Walking out of the theatre

Two friends and I went to the theatre tonight. It was a much-hyped production of a Gorky play, called "The Vacationers" which was brought over from Russia as an alleged highlight of the Dublin Theatre Festival so we were pretty excited. There was a good house in the Gaiety, a lovely and recently-restored Victorian theatre. The opening scene was promising, with an unusual visual aesthetic. However, it went downhill after that. There were several characters, most of them married to one person but in love with or consorting with another. However, it was neither erotic nor bawdy, falling between two stools. Personally, I didn't care about any of the characters which is never a good sign. The play was in Russian with surtitles, which added to our difficulty in relating to the production. Most of the audience members around us seemed both bemused and disappointed by the drama. We three decided to leave at the interval, and we weren't the only ones. €100 down the tube :-( It did feel quite liberating to walk out, though, in spite of the disappointment. Empowering!

I was privileged, however, to be one of a few thousand lucky ticket-holders for the Leonard Cohen tribute show "Came So Far for Beauty", which packed out the Point Theatre (Dublin's biggest venue) on both Wednesday and Thursday night. This show was also part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. What a night! We got four full hours of entertainment on Thursday from over a dozen top-class artists, backed by a superb mini-orchestra who provided gorgeous arrangements which were both faithful to the original songs and innovative in adding in new dimensions such as a saw (a witty friend wanted to know if it was a D-Saw or a C-Saw!).

Highlights? There were many, but the highest of them were as follows:

• The Handsome Family singing "A Thousand Kisses Deep" and "Famous Blue Raincoat"
• Beth Orton singing "So Long Marianne" and "Sisters of Mercy"
• (our own) Gavin Friday did us proud with "Who By Fire" and "Everybody Knows" (which he dedicated to our Taoiseach/Prime Minister Bertie Ahern: he's had a difficult week explaining questionable payments from friends and business associates in the early 1990s)
• Anthony with "If It Be Your Will" - what a voice that guy has!
• Lou Reed & Laurie Anderson with "Joan of Arc"
• Jarvis Cocker's version of "Chelsea Hotel"
• "Closing Time" by Robin Holcomb
• Teddy Thompson (son of Richard and Linda) with "Waiting for a Miracle"

I was familiar with the work of some of the artists, but not all of them. Some of them I'd never heard of before. The atmosphere was great, in spite of a heavy rain shower just before the gig, and the outrageous prices being charged for merchandise (€10 for a programme, people!). My friend and I got chatting to people sitting on either side of us. There was also a nice lady sitting in front of us, who lent us her binoculars from time to time when the artists were converted from blobs on stage to "real" performers with facial expressions.

We had to walk all the way back into the city centre to get a taxi but it was worth it. Now that's what I call value for money.

We got wet for beauty. We got broke for beauty. We got tired for beauty. We got footsore for beauty. And were rewarded by beauty.