Andrew Lloyd Webber, now Lord Lloyd-Webber (the hyphen came with the peerage) - or, more correctly, Baron Lloyd-Webber of Sydmonton in the County of Hampshire - came up with a real TV winner in 2005. In conjunction with the BBC he started a reality audition program series for the starring role of a new stage production of
The Sound of Music in London (my godmother took me to the original many years ago, but that’s another story).
Over a period of about six weeks the search for Maria was whittled down from the hundreds to the twenties to ten. And, for a period of weeks the people of England voted for their favorite and a final Maria emerged.
CBC took on the challenge of repeating that success for the production of the same show premiering in Toronto in the Fall of 2008. The show was hosted by a rather camp
Canadian comedian and the final choice for Maria was announced on the evening of July 28, 2008.
One of the judges of the show, Simon Lee, a conductor and musical director of international repute and long-term friend of Lloyd-Webber, failed to appear for the last two shows (the Sunday and the Monday finale) with the reason being given on air that it was due to “personal reasons.” The personal reasons turned out to be that he was in a police cell after a
bizarre episode at his hotel in a Toronto suburb which ended with a much younger man landing on a restaurant table during brunch on the Sunday morning.
My spouse voted every week and, just like an Irish election, she voted early and often – ten votes were actually allowed through three different media: texting, telephone, and on-line. Every week she found the telephone circuits were clogged with no lines available for hours after the show’s screening. These were the source circuits congested, not a CBC problem.
The same happened today in Southern California when a 5.4 magnitude earthquake hit the Chino Hills (about halfway between Los Angeles and Riverside). With little damage and no injuries reported – at the time of writing – it might be thought of as an earthquake drill for the newer California residents who had not yet felt the ground move without consuming copious quantities of the lovingly-named
Two Buck Chuck Chardonnay from Trader Joe’s.
But what was very noticeable about this event was that, again, land line and cellphone services went into
collapse. With demand reckoned at only about 40% above average, the system failed for multiple customers without any basestation or other equipment failures playing a part.
Last year’s wildfires in California caused system demand to be more than 600% above average demand: did they not
learn?
This is not satisfactory for consumers. It is not satisfactory for communications with emergency services. Some years ago on US-101 in Santa Clara County I saw a terrible accident in front of me with a car running up the back of an unloaded logging truck: almost certainly fatal for the car driver. I could not reach 911 on my cell phone – no circuits.
Why has it not improved? What is the use of advertising more-bars-in-more-places if it doesn’t help the worried communicate with authorities or family in a time of crisis? Wouldn’t you want to know, if maybe a relative of yours is interrupting brunch somewhere after rappelling down the side of a hotel…?
