I spent the whole of last weekend in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the cosy city of Beverley. Normally Beverley is a sleepy and a gentle place but once a year they play host the Beverley Folk Festival and the town dons its party clothes and dances the days and nights away.

The local leisure centre becomes music central as the main sports hall is turned into a wondrous concert venue. Marquees hosting poetry and comedy shows, acoustic sets, unsigned bands and various other events are erected on the sports fields surrounding the complex. Food and beer tents and craft stalls spring up around the periphery, several pubs and other sites in the town centre host the fringe festival, which is free and well worth seeing.

The sun shines, the crowds gather and the musicians provide the magic. Can there be a better way to mark the passing of the summer solstice? Possibly not.

As with every visit I’ve made to this festival (and there have been a few) I came way with a warm glow and a feeling of time well spent.

I usually know, to a greater or lesser degree, the main artists involved in the festival and most put great performances that lift the heart and move the feet, there is usually nothing that catches me by surprise. This year however, there was a band appearing I’d never heard of; their name alone meant they made it onto the ‘must see’ list, Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of dreams. They hail from New York and have, apparently, been around for several years. They describe their music as ‘Hillbilly-Floyd’

Lots of pleasures, grand and small, filled their set last Saturday. Each song was rolled out with great skill and aplomb by the hugely talented band. Joziah Longo, front man and songwriter liked to talk about guidance from beyond and often got a look in his eyes like he’d tapped into some mystical otherworldly energy, his deep vocals were warm and inviting and his songs may be some of the most uplifting in rock.

After the show I managed to grab a few minutes with the band and I have to tell you that they’re as kind and gracious to awe struck middle-aged men as they are talented and skilled.

If the circus doesn’t make the hair on the back of your neck stand up then you’d better check yourself for a pulse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG88Sg6OpDs

TRADITIONAL steam engines, vintage tractors and classic cars (and me) motored to Carlton Towers for the first Selby Steam Fair this weekend.

This fair usually happens at Wakefield’s Nostell Priory, which is very close to where I live, but I’ve never been. However, because I cocked up my diary dates (I penciled in the Leeds Waterfront Festival for the second weekend in June and as every idiot knows it’s the second weekend in July) I found myself at a loose end so I joined the hundreds of visitors from far and wide to enjoy day one of the two day fair.

The fair offers something for just about everyone. As well as the mighty giants of steam, the show boasts a selection of old fashioned fairground rides, a food village, rural crafts and handicrafts, a wealth of stands selling everything from auto & agricultural jumble to garden plants and an exhibition ring which housed some wonderful displays of horsemanship and falconry.

The fairground was redolent with the sights and smells of a bygone era. Mighty steam engines, with their gleaming brass work and bright liveries; their stacks belching smoke, their engines clicking, clanking and hissing proudly and loudly provided the soundtrack for the day.

As the day progressed and the sun continued to shine from a beautifully blue sky we headed towards to main arena and beer tent. The beer was cold and plentiful so as we settled down at a table on the edge of the arena and watched a great display of precision horsemanship, ate lunch and had some more perfectly chilled beer while the final steam procession of the day made its way sedately past our vantage point.

Nice. Might just go to next years now.

The word filtered through, slowly at first – on the odd blog, in the odd message, then the floodgates opened and it was all over the site – Y!360 will be gone come July 13^th 2009.

After a long drawn out agonizing decline Yahoo will finally put 360 out of it’s misery in a few weeks time. While it might be a blessing in many ways, it’s a terrible shame and scandal in many others. Now I know that Y!360 never made it out of the beta stage of development but when I joined in July 2006 it was robust, in good health and prospering. It was a healthy, living expanding social networking site.

I dipped my toe in the blogging water and I liked it immediately, no qualms or quibbles, it just suited me. I met a load of great people, many of whom I’m still proud and pleased to call friends. Some of those friends are still here, some have moved to other sites and sadly, some appear to have packed in blogging altogether

Something happened, and I don’t know what or when, but Yahoo pulled the plug on 360 in late 2007 and rumours and counter claims have been bouncing around the web since then. I always hoped that Yahoo would recognise what a great asset they had in 360 and put the time, effort and resources into making it well again, but it seems that hope was just a dream, a dashed dream.

I think and hope that Yahoo’s new social networking site (Profiles) might be a worthy successor to 360. I have activated my page there [click here] and transferred all my blogs across (easy-peasy) and I am currently in the process of finding my way about the site. If you find yourself opening a page and trying it out I’d love to hear from you, please click on the link and add me as a friend (I think we’re called contacts now).

Y!360 leaves us with a living legacy, in the lives it touched, in the friendships forged within its pages. There’ll be no funeral and, saddest of all, no grave where we who care could mourn the death of something so intangible but so real. There’ll be no eulogies and no goodbyes. Y!360’s influence was much too profound for words of such finality so instead here are my thanks to a friend who enriched my life and passed through town far too quickly.

RIP Y!360.

This blog is complementary to the blog posted yesterday by my good friend Becca.

Actual call centre conversations

Operator services

Customer: 'I've been calling 700-1000 for two days and can't get through; can you help?'
Operator: 'Where did you get that number, sir?'
Customer: 'It's on the door of the business.'
Operator: 'Sir, those are the hours that the business is open.'

++++++++++

Samsung Electronics
Caller: 'Can you give me the telephone number for Jack?'
Operator: 'I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand who you are talking about.'
Caller: 'On page 1, section 5, of the user guide it clearly states that I need to unplug the fax machine from the AC wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Now, can you give me the number for Jack?'
Operator: 'I think it means the telephone plug on the wall.'

++++++++++

Directory enquiries
Caller: 'I'd like the number of the Argo Fish Bar, please.'
Operator: 'I'm sorry, there's no listing. Are you sure that the spelling is correct?'
Caller: 'Well, it used to be called the Bargo Fish Bar but the 'B' fell off.'

++++++++++

Directory enquires
On another occasion, a man making heavy breathing sounds from a phone box told a worried operator: 'I haven't got a pen, so I'm steaming up the window to write the number on.'

++++++++++

Dell help desk
Tech Support: 'I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop.'
Customer: 'OK.'
Tech Support: 'Did you get a pop-up menu?'
Customer: 'No.'
Tech Support: 'OK. right-Click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?'
Customer: 'No.'
Tech Support: 'OK, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this
point?'
Customer: 'Sure. You told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'.'

++++++++++

Dell help desk
Caller: 'I deleted a file from my PC last week and I just realized that I need it. So, if I turn my system clock back two weeks will I get my file back again?'

++++++++++

WordPerfect Helpline
This has to be one of the funniest things in a long time. I think this guy should have been promoted, not fired. This is a true story from the WordPerfect Helpline, which was transcribed from a recording monitoring the customer care department. Needless to say the Help Desk employee was fired; however, he/she is currently suing the WordPerfect organization for 'Termination without Cause.'

Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee.
(Now I know why they record these conversations!):

Operator: 'Ridge Hall, computer assistance; may I help you?'
Caller: 'Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect.'
Operator: 'What sort of trouble??'
Caller: 'Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away.'
Operator: 'Went away?'
Caller: 'They disappeared'
Operator: 'Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?'
Caller: 'Nothing.'
Operator: 'Nothing??'
Caller: 'It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type.'
Operator: 'Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?'
Caller: 'How do I tell?'
Operator: 'Can you see the 'C: prompt' on the screen?'
Caller: 'What's a sea-prompt?'
Operator: 'Never mind, can you move your cursor around the screen?'
Caller: 'There isn't any cursor; I told you, it won't accept anything I type.'
Operator: 'Does your monitor have a power indicator??'
Caller: 'What's a monitor?'
Operator: 'It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV.
Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?'
Caller: 'I don't know.'
Operator: 'Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that??'
Caller: 'Yes, I think so..'
Operator: 'Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall.
Caller: 'Yes, it is.'
Operator: 'When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one? '
Caller: 'No.'
Operator: 'Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable.'
Caller: 'Okay, here it is.'
Operator: 'Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer.'
Caller: 'I can't reach.'
Operator: 'OK. Well, can you see if it is?'
Caller: 'No..'
Operator: 'Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?'
Caller: 'Well, it's not because I don't have the right angle -- it's because it's dark.'
Operator: 'Dark?'
Caller: 'Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window.'
Operator: 'Well, turn on the office light then.'
Caller: 'I can't.'
Operator: 'No? Why not?'
Caller: 'Because there's a power failure.'
Operator: 'A power ..... A power failure? Aha. Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff that your computer came in?'
Caller: 'Well, yes, I keep them in the closet.'
Operator: 'Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from.'
Caller: 'Really? Is it that bad?'
Operator: 'Yes, I'm afraid it is.'
Caller: 'Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?'
Operator: 'Tell them you're too damned stupid to own a computer!'