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BS: The phone in the audience
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Subject: The phone in the audience From: Cappuccino Date: 15 Dec 01 - 10:54 AM Catters outside the UK may not have heard this week's wonderful musical story, which the BBC found entertaining enough to carry on several radio news bulletins. On Thursday night, a famous orchestra was playing at one of our British concert halls, when, in the middle of a piece, the unforgiveable happened... a mobile phone rang in the audience. The conductor stopped the orchestra, put down his baton, turned to the audience and said: 'if that's my wife, tell her I'm not here!' - Ian B |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Tam the bam fraeSaltcoatsScotland Date: 15 Dec 01 - 11:01 AM I hate these idiots who take their moblie phones with them to concerts and leave them switched on. It spoils the concert for the rest of us. Can they not use the pay phones or tell the person to call them after the concert or can they not go into the foyer or lobby and call them then. It's very bad manners and rude. I mean if I went to a concert I don't pay money to hear someone's moblie phone going off. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: catspaw49 Date: 15 Dec 01 - 11:06 AM Well at the guy had a sense of humor about it. One of the worst things to have come along in years is the freakin' cell phone. For every advantage, there is an equal disadvantage. We have one too, but only use it for Karen travelling the 45 miles to work and back....makes us both feel a lot safer. But these folks with the damn things permanently affixed are a pain in the ass. Remember the days when you wrote a letter occasionally and sometimes you called.....and if there was no answer you figured you'd call back later? This whole thing of constantly being in touch........Doesn't anyone still enjoy privacy? Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Micca Date: 15 Dec 01 - 11:13 AM It happened in the quiet movement of the Brahms 4th Symphony according to my paper, and they couldnt stop it and it kept getting louder,It was impoassiblw to continue as it was in the Bridgewater hall, which is acoustically brilliant, so the conductor Jac van Steen then turned, and said as reported above. Maybe its something about the Brahams 4th, some years ago ,at Kenwood (a feature of which is a small lake between the orchestra and the audience), for an open air concert, in the same slow movement a man came, elegantly, back stroking down the centre of the lake, to howls of laughter from the audience, the only person not aware of what was happening was the conductor, as he had his back to the lake..he slowly realised all was not well, and stopped until the swimmer was removed, then started the movement again from the top. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: kendall Date: 15 Dec 01 - 11:14 AM Some time back I was in the audience of a local court and the judge announced "If anyone has a cel phone, make sure it does not ring. If it does, you will be charged with contempt." |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Celtic Soul Date: 15 Dec 01 - 11:22 AM As irritating as the happenstance may be, it is refreshing to see that the conductor handled it so humorously. I am finding the older I get, the less I like anger in my life. Alternate approaches to addressing issues such as this one are wonderful! :D Thanks!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Devilmaster Date: 15 Dec 01 - 11:26 AM Not only did the conductor take it humourously, but I'm quite sure the offending patron will NEVER have his/her cell on again during something like that. An entire concert hall stopped to look at the moron. I love it! Steve |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Rick Fielding Date: 15 Dec 01 - 11:33 AM I'd send the guy to a Military Tribunal. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: katlaughing Date: 15 Dec 01 - 11:39 AM That was a Brill way for the conductor to handle it! Micca, thanks for the additional info. Ya suppose Brahms ever envisioned such antics to his music?**BG** It's just as bad in movie theatres. If one is a doctor or otherwise has to be within reach, they should wear a pager and put it on silent vibrate, then LEAVE the hall to make the call. Some places now have signs or verbally tell audiences that all phones should be shut off during the concert. Ha! Think I'll make that up into a bumper sticker: "Leave the Hall, to Make the Call! kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Amos Date: 15 Dec 01 - 11:55 AM Spaw has a good point. It is true there is an advantage in productivity to be bale to communicate rapidly in fast-changing situations. But the good thing about the older slower model Spaw reminisces about is that when you weren't constantly hooking up and swapping viewpoints, youhad to think responsibly. The advantages to decision making and production get offset by the trend to mass-think, where instead of analyzing and deciding people ruslte up some group agreement and get a half-baked answer multiplied by 30!! Sometimes talking to others is just the wrong thing to do! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: breezy Date: 15 Dec 01 - 11:58 AM If it happens in our folk club then the offender has to do a song, during which members ring each other. So far it hasn't happened. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: SINSULL Date: 15 Dec 01 - 12:33 PM Everywhere I go, there is an announcement up front - turn off your cell phones. At jury duty, the contempt charge was threatened seriously. No incoming calls and if you must call out, go outside. BUT...when the World Trade Center came down, many were grateful for the use of strangers' cell phones to locate family in lower Manhattan. It drives me crazy to see kids walking down the street carrying on inane converations on cell phones..."So I told him 'Fuck, man'. And he said 'Screw you'. So I ain't hanging with him and his bitch anymore." GIANT SIGH. I don't own one yet. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: katlaughing Date: 15 Dec 01 - 02:30 PM Rog thought he'd seen it all one time when he went into a men's room in Caracas and there was a guy, standing at the urinal, member in one hand pissing away while he rattled on and on to a caller on his cell phone! That's TOO available! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Gary T Date: 15 Dec 01 - 02:40 PM A fellow had a sandwich shop that was very popular, with a prominent sign that said "No Cell Phones Allowed." One day he noticed one of the customers had a cell phone, so he walked over to his table and said, "Buddy, you'll have to take that phone out of here." The patron responded, "You don't understand--I need it, I'm a doctor." To which the response was, "Oh, in that case, Mr. Doctor sir, you'll have to take that phone out of here." :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: MichaelM Date: 15 Dec 01 - 02:44 PM I understand the Israelis have invented a device that blocks out cell signals within a given area. There should be a huge market for this invention (e.g. concert halls, movie theatres, live theatre and hospitals) but at present it is illegal in Canada to interfere with cellular signals. I also believe that most users haven't a clue how to switch their phones from audible ring to vibrate. These are the same techno-naifs who can't figure out how to turn off the hourly beep on their digital watch. Sit in any good acoustic during a performance and listen to the chorus of electronic crickets that bracket the hour. Not only have they forgotten how to turn off the beep but they have forgotten how to set the time on the damn things! I suggested to a friend of mine that he could preface his evening concerts with a hands-on seminar on silencing your digital timepiece. Armed only with a collection of common owner's manuals or their online equivalent he could uncover the hidden sequence of buttons and add to the general peace. If you own a phone or watch or electronic gadget that won't shut up when you want it to ... it owns you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 15 Dec 01 - 02:56 PM Yes, before phones it was watches. I remember at a funeral Mass, where the custome was for people to slip out from their seats one by one to put Mass Cards on the coffin One man did so - and just as he put the card on the coffin, his watch started playing The Yellow Rose of Texas. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Mooh Date: 15 Dec 01 - 04:30 PM Growing up, I was taught never to interupt conversations, sleep, study, prayer, rest, or any other private or confidential passtime. The exception it seems, and increasingly so nowadays, is the telephone. The simple access to a phone is a blanket license to interupt the lives and goings-on of others. I don't believe this is proper. I try never to call too early or late in the day, at mealtime or if I think there's a possibility of interupting one's private life beyond reasonable allowances. This restricts my phone use; that and my general dislike for the contraption. If everyone did the same, there might be more internet conversations, more letters written, more neighbourly visits, less bullshit, and more mannerly consideration in the world. My family owns a cell phone however, though nobody knows where in the house it is at the moment, for travel emergencies. Several times in the past couple of years I've heard the things ring, then been annoyed by the conversation during folk festivals, the one place where such modern workaday crap should be cast off, IMHO. Along with seadoos, a good reason to own an axe. Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Ned Ludd Date: 15 Dec 01 - 05:11 PM Once, in our Folk club a mobile rang in the middle of the encore. The phone belonged to the evening's Guest(who shall be nameless) and was his partner asking when he would get Home. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Cappuccino Date: 15 Dec 01 - 05:45 PM I have heard, in church, the following: 'Our father, who art in Heaven....' 'Ringgggggggg.........' You don't really expect such an instant response, do you? - IanB |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: AliUK Date: 15 Dec 01 - 06:13 PM I HATE hate hate hate hate hate mobiles. Here in Brazil you're considered some kind of backward moron if you don't have one. I keep losing mine but my wife keeps finding the damn thing. These people who have them glued to their ears should be sent to bloody antartica and see how the penguins bloody like it. I was in the cinema not long ago and a guy's mobile went off. He calmly sat there chatting away and the volume of his voice kept going up because the reception wasn't too good in the theatre. I bloody told him the bastrd, he didn't even get thrown out. I hope he's somewhere not very nice. I mean what did people do before cell phones? They just make it easier for your creditors to keep bugging you. Bastards. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Devilmaster Date: 15 Dec 01 - 06:46 PM No, aliUK, what do you really think?? LOL! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Banjer Date: 16 Dec 01 - 05:58 AM I think AliUK should cease beating around the bush and come right out and say what what the problem is!! I finally gave in and obtained a cell phone. A very simple prepaid model with no extras, (voice mail, call waiting, etc). My wife wanted us to have some means of communication while on trips. I now carry the thing with me to appease her when I go out on my bicycle in case of flat tires or other catastrophes. I do not leave it on. I use it only when I want to make a call out. In my job I have phones around me 8 to 10 hours a day, and the last thing I want to do when I get home is answer another damn phone! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: JennieG Date: 16 Dec 01 - 06:29 AM I used to work at a Catholic high school - the last function for the final year students was the Graduation Mass, hundreds of people, all very solemn...all was quiet at one point when 'ring ring' came from somewhere in the midst of the assembled multitudes. I thought it was in poor taste actually, and so did most other people. >br>Cheers JennieG |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: The Shambles Date: 16 Dec 01 - 06:32 AM The Art of Conversation, a link to a song in the Mudcat Songbook. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: GUEST,harvey andrews Date: 16 Dec 01 - 07:00 AM Oh, my mother's in my pocket and she'll never go away She tells me that I have to keep my mobile on each day And where you going, what you doing,'s all she'll ever say Now my mother's in my pocket and she'll never go away
Now my wife is in my pocket and she'll never go away
See us on the street, the train
Now my boss is in my pocket and he'll never go away
See us on etc
Soon I'll empty all my pockets and I'll throw them all away |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Celtic Soul Date: 16 Dec 01 - 08:06 AM Kat penned: "It's just as bad in movie theatres. If one is a doctor or otherwise has to be within reach, they should wear a pager and put it on silent vibrate, then LEAVE the hall to make the call". My honey has a cell-phone that can be set to vibrate (I believe it is a Sprint PCS). It also takes messages. I would think that a Doctor could afford one of these, set it to vibrate (along with the pager), and, if he absolutely has to take or return the call, he *could* (as you say) go to the lobby. No denying that having the thing on at all (or on ring if he had a vibrate setting) is rude behaviour. I am still smiling at the conductors solution though!! :D
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Bert Date: 16 Dec 01 - 10:22 AM Banjer, You would find a puncture repair outfit and a pump a much cheaper option. In my cycling days we used to be able to repair a flat and be back on the road in about five minutes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: SeanM Date: 16 Dec 01 - 05:32 PM I've a therapist friend who spends HOURS on his cell daily, talking with clients. However, he has his system set up so that calls to his office buzz his pager (which is on vibrate), and then he excuses himself, goes to someplace private and away from the general din of the public, and calls from there. But then again, he's considerate and fairly polite. M
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Phil Cooper Date: 16 Dec 01 - 05:47 PM I agree with Mooh's points, above. I finally got a cell phone and pretty much only use it to make calls that are necessary. Don't see an advantage to my being reachable all the time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Liz the Squeak Date: 16 Dec 01 - 05:59 PM Yeah, but why bother with vibrate because whenever mine goes off in my pocket I forget what it is and go 'Ooohh' loudly! I like the chorus of beeps and tones you get as you come out of a tunnel to an overland section of the Tube..... everyone gets the signal at about the same time, so no-one knows whose beep is whose..... LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: MC Fat Date: 17 Dec 01 - 04:21 AM A singer I know was on stage actually singing when his own mobile (which he had on his belt) went off he stopped singing and answered thus :- Oh yes Chris I'll talk to Bill, it's the £250,000 question !! . Hi Bill right a/ Tony Blair b/ Iain Duncan Smith c/ Bill Clinton d/ Osmana Bin Ladin. Yeah the answers a/ Tony Blair. Then he put his phone back in his belt.The person who phoned was most bemused but the audience had a good laugh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: KingBrilliant Date: 17 Dec 01 - 05:52 AM my mobile is a right git. It has a very cavalier attitude to this whole ringing business. It even phones me itself. I was talking to it for five whole minutes on the land line - until I heard the dog walk past (long claws on a hard floor)& realised my phone had phoned me. I had assumed it was Mark phoning from a pub and being too drunk to talk (though how I'd imagined he had been able to dial the number??) It also phoned my parents when I was cycling home from the shops - and they were treated to 15 minutes of listening to shopping bumping around in my bag. Its not just my mobile though - my dad's phone is also rebelling. He dropped it on the floor the other day, picked it up uttering the magic word "bugger" - and was greeted by my sister's sleepy voice - by some amazing feat of technology the phone had connected him to Judith in Japan at some rediculous early hour. He then phoned BT to check whether he was permanently connected to Japan - at which the BT engineer pointed out that probably not, considering he was talking to him. Dad is now scared to say "bugger" anywhere near a phone - rates to Japan being fairly costly. Kris |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Cappuccino Date: 17 Dec 01 - 09:13 AM Seeing as I started all this, I should in fairness say that I bought a mobile phone the day after I was stuck in traffic and failed to get back to school in time to pick my then-eight-year-old up, with much resulting drama. He's now 13, and we both have a mobile... and as a single parent, I demand that he's in constant touch. And, the other day, driving into Oxford, I had the classic experience. A hundred yards ahead, coming the other way, two cars collided - one flashed past me a millisecond later, travelling sideways, and the other missed me by inches, before ending up in the ditch. But the mobile was on, and I was talking to the ambulance services before those cars had even come to a halt. But then again, as Ali says, you can't avoid the people you don't want to talk to... - Ian B
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Steve Latimer Date: 17 Dec 01 - 09:17 AM I had one of these a few years ago. I was on the road a fair amount and wanted to be available to my office and clients. Rates were much higher then. The majority of the calls I received were from buddies asking if I wanted to bugger off to play golf. There are many golf courses that have outlawed them, thank God. I could write a book on the inconsiderate behaviour I have seen from Cell phone users on golf Courses. My leisure time is my leisure time. Even if I had a cellphone I sure wouldn't bring it to a performance, or round of golf or church. Users, please consider others.
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: GUEST,Out-of-cookies Trevor Date: 17 Dec 01 - 09:42 AM Kris, you may like to know I have just spat my coffee all over the screen! Brill story. It's happened to me too - I had five minutes of my brother-in-law sweeping the leaves, and the other day heard the row that he was having with the plumber. It makes you terrified to say anything incriminating in case Phone is listening, ready to repeat what you've said to whoever you don't want to be in trouble with! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: late 'n short 2 Date: 17 Dec 01 - 10:37 AM Re: the guy in Caracas at the urinal. Same thing happened to me during intermission at a Broadway show. The guy standing next to me had one hand on the phone and the other hand on...well you get the picture. I just wondered if the person on the the other end of the conversation knew what was going one. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Big Mick Date: 17 Dec 01 - 10:54 AM This isn't about cell phones. It is about manners and civility. This is about crude people who use the line "this is the 21st century" as an excuse for not following timeless values. It is not unhip to be polite. It is not passe to be respectful. AND there is nothing wrong with cellphones. I use them daily and find them indispensable. BUT my right to have a cell phone does not give me the right to infringe on other folks space. One has absolutely no manners if I have to explain what is rude about leaving a cell phone on in a theater or at a concert. One shouldn't have to have a sign asking folks to turn off their cell phones at a function of any sort. Leaving it one is akin to playing a radio during a concert. These days it seems there is an almost pathological need to be seen with it on your ear. I agree with Spaw on his analysis of this. If I really have to be available to take a call, I use the vibrate feature. Mick |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: mousethief Date: 17 Dec 01 - 11:13 AM My wife and I got cell phones when we discovered that it would be cheaper than what we were paying to call home or each other from work as much as we were (the Seattle area having some of the smallest free-calling zones in the nation, it would seem -- we both worked less than 30 miles from home, but it was long distance to call home or each other!). If I am going to a movie or show of some sort, I will either leave it in the car, or set it to vibrate. Since it has a fully functional on-screen menu, it's not like you have to memorize some arcane sequence of buttons to set it to vibrate mode. But anyway for us the reason to get it was cost. Which is the same reason we're getting DSL: it's cheaper to get DSL than to have 2 phone lines and a dial-up ISP. Alex |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Kim C Date: 17 Dec 01 - 11:31 AM Agreed, Mick. My phone has saved my bacon a time or two... we actually were out of town when a family member died, and that phone was the only way to reach us. I do not have it on in restaurants or movie theaters. But think about this for a minute... you don't know if the person with the phone on in the theater has a critically ill relative, or a wife about to go in labor, or some other impending emergency. Granted, most people don't... but perhaps once in awhile, the person you think is an inconsiderate boob has a lot more at stake than you may realize. Just a thought. And a funny story.... we were watching a singing couple at a colonial trade fair, when someone's phone went off. The singer immediately kicked off his wooden shoe, held it up to his ear, and said, "Hello?" |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Mrrzy Date: 17 Dec 01 - 12:55 PM People with such severe emergencies pending, like doctors on call or partners of women about to go into labor, should find something else to do with their time than go somewhere where it is rude to be interrupted, and then insist that they be allowed to interrupt anyway. Sorry, change your on-call schedule, do something else while waiting for labor to progress, etc. But on the other hand, have you heard about the cell phone concerts? They play the cell phones AS the performance? There is a thread about that somewhere... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Kim C Date: 17 Dec 01 - 01:22 PM Maybe so. It was just a thought. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: brid widder Date: 17 Dec 01 - 01:28 PM the place...the stewards caravan at the official campsite at Whitby last year...the time 4am...on the last night...the steward are celebrating the end of an exhausting week...some of the younger Wilson's joined us and we all joined in 'Ale Ale glorious ale'...sung with gusto and bellies full of the stuff!!..I wouldn't have remembered...if I hadn't sat on my mobile phone and had the occasion recorded on my friends voicemail!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Liz the Squeak Date: 17 Dec 01 - 06:46 PM Ah, Gervase will tell you that arses are not always so helpful.... My mobile at least plays a folk song ('Sorry the day I was married') when Manitas rings me. He wants to put 'wish I was single again' on his but can't work out how to do it! And it looks like a bar of chocolate! LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Tyghress Date: 18 Dec 01 - 12:20 PM For all you cell phone haters: http://www.flong.com/telesymphony/ I thought this was marvelous! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Tyghress Date: 18 Dec 01 - 12:22 PM For all you cell phone haters: http://www.flong.com/telesymphony/ I thought this was marvelous! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Ned Ludd Date: 18 Dec 01 - 04:03 PM Liz, Mine plays THE FIVE TONES, at least I can pretend it's Aliens! Perhaps sombody with my moniker shouldn't have one. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: GUEST,SharonA on vacation, checkin' in Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:48 PM To Kim C and Mrrzy (re People with impending emergencies): Sorry, Mrrzy, but I have to agree with Kim on this one. One can't expect a doctor on call, a pregnant woman's Lamaze partner, or a chronically ill child's parent to give up activities such as attending a theater performance or movie screening, when such activities can provide much-needed distraction from stress. But you - we all - CAN and SHOULD expect such people to switch their cell phones to "vibrate" (and to learn how to do it, if they don't already know!) and to make sure they answer their phones in a location where they won't be a distraction to others. If one needs to answer one's calls immediately, then one should sit next to an exit so he won't be trodding on other people's feet on his way out of his front-row-center seat! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: GUEST,Peter from Essex Date: 18 Dec 01 - 07:00 PM You didn't need a cellphone Brid, we could hear it all over the camp site. Personally I find a phone going off in a concert a bloody site less of a nuisance than being kept awake all night before a 200 mile drive. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: brid widder Date: 19 Dec 01 - 01:44 PM Peter I think we met!!as I said that night we we're pleased you at least had had a good festival..we had spent up to ten hours a day taking care of YOUR property... trying our best to make sure you had stuff worth taking home, I believe your attitude was serve us right for volunteering well to tell you the truth I wonder why we bothered!! I am a little surprised that anyone would use a folk festival campsite...set up camp close to the entrance and complain because the stewards sing...on the last night?? come on!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The phone in the audience From: Paul from Hull Date: 19 Dec 01 - 02:05 PM Peter from Essex, I've had to be reminded about what happened, cos I wasnt on the site that night...but apparently they moved away from the Caravan they were in, to one further away from you. Had I been there, I'd have probably said 'sod him', about your complaint after the week we had had....& I make no apology for that. You might find other Festival Campsites a damn sight noisier than that one. Now maybe you were a bit miffed at the time, but I'm assuming you were being a bit 'jokey' in your post above, & just forgot to put the 'smiley face' on it to show you didnt mean it as harsh as it sounded. Paul F. Taylor, Campsite Steward-In-Charge |