Having cleaned the windows and re-organised my book piles, I caught the end of the Chuckle Brother’s zany antics on BBC2 this morning. During the blooper reel at the end, the name of Colin Ibbotson was mentioned, as one Chuckle got it mixed with the name of a character. The other responded with “you went to school with Colin Ibbotson” (or words to that effect).

Is this another claim to fame of the “UK Super Lightweight Hiker”, Colin Ibbotson? If so, the episode is “Jumping Jackpot” and the Elliott brothers hail from Rotherham in Yorkshire. But it is probably just coincidence.

Getting back to Aberdeen, I find that Yahoo’s blockade of my email address only applies to emails sent from Pipex’s online “Netmail” service. Emails sent from my desktop to Yahoo addresses are fine. Huzzah for the ineptitude of Yahoo. As I rarely use Pipex’s “Netmail” service, I am now not sure how long yahoo have had their blockade active, since they have never told me about it, and – when they did bother to reply to my enquiries – said that it was nothing to do with them. In other words, Yahoo lied. They are not lying now, as they did not reply to my last email. Maybe that’s where the name comes from? Stick a finger in each ear and make the noise “Yahoo” continually until the complaints go away.

Life’s too short to bother with these bozos. Transmission ends.

Massed pipe bands in Stornoway today. They were really good, and were having fun.

There was a parade and stalls and the rescue helicopter did amazing feats of control and slides and a fair and dancing and a craft fair and the international market and there was lots and lots and lots of people at it and even the police car had streamers on it.

With more important things happening than dealing with some crap from a company that refuses to do anything about stopping me from emailing friends and family who are with them, I forgot to say that a technician from Pipex called me on Wednesday afternoon. He said that Yahoo had installed a new updated spam filter, and it had blocked lots of accounts (including his). Pipex had tried getting through to Yahoo, but there was no response. He suggested that I kept on trying.

I did point out that I was merely a single individual, that Pipex was in a better position to tell Yahoo that they were blockading innocent customers. We laughed then at Yahoo’s deal with Microsoft, where Yahoo were relying on making money from their existing customers – something that would be curtailed by Yahoo’s accountholders not getting mail from their friends and family who are being blockaded.

Today, I laughed when I saw the report on the BBC entitled “The internet's conscientious objectors” and the high-minded words of Martha Lane Fox (unelected, appointed as Digital Champion) “I don't think you can be a proper citizen of our society in the future if you are not engaged online” she said. We are not online citizens, we are users of systems. We have no rights, but merely accept their terms and conditions. How then can we be proper citizens, when the best we can hope for is to be part of a community.

Time I dusted off Hobbe’s “Leviathan”, as we humans have not changed much in over 300 years.

by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in latine CIVITAS) which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which, the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificiall Joynts; Reward and Punishment (by which fastned to the seat of the Soveraignty, every joynt and member is moved to performe his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Naturall; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi (the Peoples Safety) its Businesse; Counsellors, by whom all things needfull for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Lawes, an artificiall Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sicknesse; and Civill War, Death. Lastly, the Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let Us Make Man, pronounced by God in the Creation.

We are a species that uses communications and tools for advancement. The Internet is merely one of these tools. Online or off-line, we are all part of the leviathan.

Your still blockading my Pipex account. It has been going on since Friday the 24th July, and all I get is the "it isn't anything to do with Yahoo" messages. Strange, I get the same from Pipex. In the meantime, I cannot email friends and family on their Yahoo or BTopenworld accounts.

Thank you for not caring. It just gives Yahoo a bad reputation, and we work round it by me email them on their other accounts, eg Freeserve or Google. And life goes on.

Sunshine over Broad Bay, originally uploaded by dimacleod.

Low pressure no longer sitting directly over crofthouse and the first sign of sunshine in a week.

Dear Yahoo! User,

Please tell us about your recent experience with Yahoo! Postmaster Customer Care in a brief online survey.

…

Thanks so much for taking the time to give us your feedback.

Have a great day,
Yahoo! Postmaster Customer Care

=================

Well, a week later, and I am still blocked from sending to Yahoo.com, Yahoo.co.uk and now BTopenworld.com – I only get automated responses from Yahoo. Pipex are replying and say that their engineers are following it up. In the meantime, I’m copy/pasting emails from my secondary account. So I was delighted to see this appear in the in-tray. Sadly it is filed under their “mail abuse” category. They block me, they don’t do anything about it, and now I’m filed under “mail abuse”. Anyway, I think it has stopped raining, so I’d better nip out and tidy up the croft of toys left after the last downpour.

==================

Overall, how satisfied were you with your most recent email interaction with Yahoo! Postmaster Customer Care?

1-Very Dissatisfied

Was your issue resolved?

No

We're sorry your issue was not resolved. To help us do a better job next time, please select the reason below that best describes why your issue was not resolved.

none of the answers said that yahoo did not care enough to bother

My problem is a known issue to Yahoo! Postmaster that hasn't been fixed yet.

What did you like MOST about your Yahoo! Postmaster Customer Care experience?

Nothing. You failed completely, and I still cannot send emails to people at Yahoo or BTopenworld. Your responses were merely copy/pasted from the Yahoo response book.

What did you like LEAST about your Yahoo! Postmaster Customer Care experience?

The automatic way that you passed the buck onto my ISP with no interest in me as a customer. We've been chatting about it on http://aktoman.blogspot.com

What improvements, if any, would you like Yahoo! Postmaster Customer Care to make?

Treat people like people. You care not a jot about this customer, so I laugh at you calling yourself "Customer Care". Ha ha.

Occasionally, we contact a few customers for additional info about their feedback. If needed, may we get in touch with you?

Yes

Hello Duncan,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.
 
I am sorry to hear about the issue you have experienced. We have checked our servers and our mail systems appear to be working at the moment. The issue may have been transient or network-related.
 
Please have the mail system administrator or postmaster of pipex.com contact us directly via the Yahoo! Mail Help page below in order to investigate the issue in further details.
 
 http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-03.html
 
We apologize for the inconvenience.
 
You may contact the Postmaster of the domain related to the issue at the email address below:
 
postmaster@domain.com
 
You may replace "domain.com" with the extension of the domain in question.

Your patience during this process is greatly appreciated.
 
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Mail. Your case number for this issue is xxxxx. Please reference it in all future communication about this particular issue.

Regards,
 
Hank
Yahoo! Customer Care

=========================

To which I replied…

=========================

Hank - this is a duplicate of the email that you have sent me yesterday. I posted my reply online, since I cannot be bothered duplicating my response:

http://aktoman.blogspot.com/2009/07/yahoo-customer-care-team-missive-3.html
and then on Wednesday when your system still refuses to allow me to email from my Pipex account to any Yahoo.com or Yahoo.co.uk

http://aktoman.blogspot.com/2009/07/yahoo-customer-care-team-missive-4.html

As stated, I will be contacting the UK's Ombudsman about this on Thursday as you have had 6 days to sort this, and you now just cannot be bothered. I just checked by sending trying to send an email to my Yahoo account, and you are still blocking it because of your policy.

Duncan

Mini tornado wreaks havoc on isle (BBC News).

The power was out last night after the lightening storm, and the older kids missed Stornoway’s mini-tornado by 15 minutes. They used words like “cool” when seeing the video clip.

You are STILL refusing to allow me to post to Yahoo accounts. This has been going on since Friday and YOU refuse to take any action, saying it is nothing to do with YOU. Despite the FACT that the error message has YAHOO's name on it.

FFS, get a move on as my next action is to contact the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman here in the UK about this slander on my name.

Since this ineptitude seems to be systemic, I have already set up a Google Group account to take over from our club's Yahoo Group, so you'll lose their eyeballs on your adverts as well as when I close down my 11-year old Yahoo account to move it to the GoogleMail account that I set up yesterday.

Duncan,
And never assume that I am patient when I am being called a thief and a liar by a faceless corporation from it's ivory towers in America.

http://aktoman.blogspot.com