Tempted as I am to have a real go at Telstra, our largest Telco company for failing to find the fault with my internet connectivity, I'll save it for another day. My trials continue with as many as 21 outages in a five hour period. I thank the incredible patience of my lovely lad on Skype whose index finger is probably bloodied from pressing his mouse to redial and as for me? I've realised how much I rely on the internet at home and having it break all the time is doing my head in so please bear with me, I will try to visit as connectivity permits.
Meanwhile, did you know that Christmas is coming? Oh yeah, be here before you know it. The tree's up, wreath on the door, now all I have to do is the shopping. Christmas down here is a little different as you'd appreciate and Santa's already been visiting kids in the outback:
An outback Christmas party turned to chaos when a teacher and her principal were bitten by a snake.
The Indian Pacific train visited the railway siding at Watson in outback South Australia to bring pre-Christmas entertainment to locals, including children from the Oak Valley School.
Its principal Bob Sim said a teacher was bitten by a mildly-poisonous yellow-faced whip snake which then slid under Santa's chair, a spot which presumably was well shaded from the outback heat.
Mr Sim says he was then bitten as he tried to remove the snake from under the chair.
"Father Christmas was still sitting in the chair and I said to everyone 'Where's the snake, where's the snake?' and they said 'It's under Father Christmas's chair'," he said.
"I was about to dispatch the snake to snake heaven but all the people around me were yelling 'Don't kill it, don't kill it'."
Mr Sim said he could not quite reach the snake.
"I was about an inch-and-a-half too short and it spun around and latched onto my finger," he said.
"I said to the kids ... it's a Christmas they'll remember, not just for the experience of getting a present from Father Christmas but they'll be able to remember that two of their teachers got bitten by the same snake," he said.
"A bit of a comedy of errors I suppose."
Er dopey teachers if you ask me,why didn't they just dislodge Santa and move the chair? Ah and these people are educating our children.
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| Doesn't look too menacing does he? |
Have a great weekend folks.
I would have thought Aussies well used to dealing with snakes, but apparently not. Looks like Santa had the right idea, he just totally ignored it and got on with the job.
ReplyDeleteThat's a very pretty snake and clever too, getting two for the price of one, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteyikes...if you cant reach you snake, just leave it...or you might get hurt?
ReplyDeletepretty stoopid, all :(
ReplyDeleteNice snake :/ but they are harmless as men I think.Have a great weekend too Helen!:)
ReplyDeleteharmless than men I wanted to say..but you knew..french :P
ReplyDeletesssssssssssssssss
ReplyDeleteHmmmm... Yeah, grabbing at snakes with teeth under a dark chair probably isn't the brightest move one could make.
ReplyDeleteThe only snakes we need to worry about in Ireland are in Politics! Everyone feeling their bite right now!
ReplyDeleteNothing like picking up a poisonous snake with your bare hand to move it out of the way. Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteYup...it's fuckwith time!
ReplyDeleteI would NOT be grabbing at ANY snake. And...ummmmm...I would think Father Christmas would have removed himself rather quickly too!
ReplyDeleteSorry about the internet upsets...FRUSTRATING!
cute little bugger. i hope they knew what kind of snake it was before they got all grabby hands with it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder is it all over Oz, I was Skyping my bro last night and it kept cutting out, I thought it was me and the good people at NTL.
ReplyDeleteSnakes are my worst fear. I would scream crying if that happened me.
Nonny
I can't deal with our local telco company that monopolize all internet services. And a snake killed one of our turkeys. They can be mean.
ReplyDeleteChristmas is coming to Malaysia too. But if you are at the mall, you'd think it is already here.
Yes, those are easy for me, but things like Management, Psychology or Marketing are nightmares for me. At least in the second semester I will have less tasks and more subjects to shine. :)
ReplyDeleteUh, I hate snakes.
At least Santa was well padded, so his arse wasn't in any danger....
ReplyDeleteAs for the 'wise' teacher who tried to pick up the snake I'll bet he was utterly, end-of-the-year, I-hate-all-these-little-shits-of-kids exhausted. I know I am :)
They'll make the most of that incident at Watson, after all is there anything exciting that ever happens in Watson??? Must have made the snake's day!
ReplyDeleteJust caught up with your injury Helen- whew! Hope your face is O.K. and you've found a nice pair of sunnies! My daughter was little when I upended myself (mildly inebriated) reaching down into the depths of the icecream freezer at Coles. This was after a few drinks at her little friend's house. The mothers gathered there were all nurses and after a hilarious afternoon where they needed to debrief, I thought I'd sobered up. Luckily daughters are usually quite forgiving as they glance around to make sure they're not recognized.
We have a telecommunications regulator who supposedly is a watchdog on the industry. I have discovered that our ComReg as they are called, paid for by the taxpayer, are actually a tool of the telecoms industry and their sole purpose is to keep criticism of the various companies at an absolute minimum by pretending they are working on behalf of the customer. They take complaints from customers, giving them specific complaint numbers, soothing them by e-mailing their updates in to their investigations and will also talk to customers on the phone. Not one ComReg investigation to date (fifteen years now) has ever found against a telecom company and all complainants have been found to have been in breach of contract. In Ireland this is normal given the level of corruption within Government. I think you guys in Oz may have a similar problem.
ReplyDelete