Theatre Review: Rupert Everett Channels Oscar Wilde in Judas Kiss

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

Oscar Wilde

I love the theatre! I love everything about the theatre. And I’ve been extremely fortunate to see the best of the best in London, New York and in Toronto. Last week I had the unmitigated delight of witnessing one of the most magnificent performances that I’ve ever seen – Rupert Everett starring in Judas Kiss.

Until now Rupert Everett had clearly been the best interpreter of Oscar Wilde. His performances in The Importance of Being Earnest and The Ideal Husband attest to that. But, in this play, Rupert Everett didn’t interpret Oscar Wilde, nor did he play Oscar Wilde; he channelled him. It was as though Rupert was not even in the room. Oscar was present in all of his magnificence, his legendary wit and charm on full display. And after all was said and done, it was Oscar who took the curtain calls; not Rupert. For those of you like me, who share a love of everything Oscar Wilde, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be in his presence.

Don’t miss this theatre tour de force. And, if you can afford it, spring for seats as close to the stage as possible. You won’t want to miss a single word.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Oscar Wilde

Make someone smile today.

Geri

Is Professional Courtesy a Thing of the Past?

I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing common about common courtesy or common sense.

SomeECards.com

Just when I think that nothing about the corporate world could surprise me anymore, I heard a few stories recently that stopped me in my tracks. It seems that professional courtesy has gone the way of the dodo.

It’s always been an accepted practice that when one interviews for a job in person (not merely the anonymous sending of an application online), but an honest to goodness face-to-face interview, that one could expect a phone call in a timely fashion after the fact. Apparently this isn’t the way we do business anymore. A friend of mine interviewed for a high level position in a Fortune 100 company (where she presently works) over six weeks ago. Although she’s sent two follow up emails to the hiring manager, she has yet to receive a response. Isn’t that special? I’ve since spoken to several people in that same company and they told me that when they initially interviewed it was 3 – 5 months after the fact that they were offered the job; and there was no contact at all during those months.

Another friend interviewed (also face-to-face) for another Fortune 100 company. Several weeks later she received a templated email thanking her for her application but that they were moving forward with other candidates. She sent the HR manager an email telling him in no uncertain terms that after an in-person interview she expected the courtesy of a phone call. He did have the grace to call her back and apologize but said that although he agreed, “that this is just the way business is done these days”.

Well, that’s just not good enough. When did it become okay to dispense with professional courtesy or any courtesy for that matter because “that’s just how we do things these days”? It’s high time that we remember that every human being deserves to be treated with respect and dignity.That's the way I do business and live my life. Shouldn't you?

Being polite is so rare these days that it’s often confused with flirting.

Quotesgram.com

Make someone smile today.

Geri

FREE AT LAST – FROM ROGERS

Dear Customer Service,

First of all, you should know I’m typing this with my middle finger.

SomeECards.com

Many of you already know I got rid of Rogers for Internet and cable TV (thankfully they were never my mobile provider) some time ago and have been more than delighted. However, I was still left with one indirect tie to Rogers which I have now severed most completely.

When I changed Internet Service Providers to Start.ca, since I already had a cable connection in the house the easiest thing to do was to connect the new modem to the existing cable. Unfortunately this only solved half of my problem. The good news was I no longer had to deal with Rogers, which was a tonic for my nervous system. Start is a model of excellent customer service. Unfortunately Start uses Rogers cable so although I now had excellent customer service, my actual service was no better.

I seem to live in one of several areas where Rogers has had ongoing problems; we experience frequent, lengthy outages. Instead of solving the problem, Rogers manages to put a Band-Aid on it each time and hope that it will go away. Of course, it never does. Recently I’ve been experiencing outages on a weekly basis and I was not prepared to deal with this anyone. So, I contacted Start and asked to be changed to a DSL line from Bell. The deed is done and now I am totally and completely free from Rogers. My computer, that I thought had become sluggish as a result of being five years old, is humming along and my TV never freezes or has trouble loading (I stream TV) anymore.

I should have cut all ties with Rogers years ago instead of tolerating bad service and bad customer service for the sake of convenience. As consumers the only voice we have is with our dollars. Spend your money wisely.

A satisfied customer — we should have him stuffed!

Basil Fawlty from the series Fawlty Towers

Make someone smile today.

Geri

Rating the Online Dating Game

I can’t believe how convenient online dating is! Now my dream of finding love can be crushed more efficiently and in the privacy of my own home.

RottenECards

Every dating site brags that they’re responsible for the most relationships and marriages. Since there’s never been a scientific study that measures the effectiveness of each online dating site and provides empirical data as to the results, the dating site brag-a-thon continues. Here are a few less than scientific observations about the online dating sites that my friends and/or I have used.

Neil Clark Warren, founder of eHarmony, claims to be responsible for 5% of all marriages in the United States, but has no data to back up the claim. According to the Pew Research Center (which happens to be a reliable source of information and has the data to back up their statistics), 5% of Americans who are in a marriage or committed relationship say they met their significant other online. That’s 5% in total of all the online dating sites out there so there’s no way on God’s little acre that eHarmony could possibly back up their ridiculous claim. According to the experiences of my friends (I have never used eHarmony. I refuse to sign up for a year and pay way too much money for the privilege), eHarmony is the worst. They’ve met fewer people than on the other sites and none even had a second date as a result.

Plenty of Fish (POF) or Plenty of Minnows as I affectionately call it is the powerhouse of free dating sites. POF claims to have 3.5 million daily active users who have 9 million conversations every day. And they claim that every 2 minutes a couple confirms to POF that their relationship started on the service. Again, take the grandiose claims with a grain of salt. However, anecdotally, POF is the hands down winner in the success department. In my immediate circle of friends, there have been several long term relationships and a marriage. All I can say is that people are getting their money’s worth (it’s free) and their claims may indeed be accurate.

Match.com claims to have helped create 517,000 relationships - 92,000 marriages, and 1 million babies. However, the numbers that they quote are for the Match Group, not Match.com. And, what you may not know is that the Match Group bought OKCupid in 2011 and Plenty of Fish in 2015. So they now have the market cornered in the online dating world and their quoted statistics may not reflect Match.com, but the Match Group. What I found interesting was that the biggest user group at Match.com (according to Match) is the age range of 25-44 which makes perfect sense because none of my friends or I (in the 60ish age range) have had any success on Match.

OKCupid claims to have 1 million active members. One very odd statistic (at least to me) is that they boast that 58% of members indicated an interest in bondage in 2015. This is up 5% over the year before. For all of you who are into bondage, OK Cupid is the site for you. They offer no statistics about lasting relationships and marriage. What I find even more interesting is that one of my friends has had a bumper crop of dates on OKCupid. Perhaps we should have a chat about her predilection for bondage…

Based on your online dating profile I’m guessing literacy is not one of the characteristics we share.

QuotesGram.com

Make someone smile today.

Geri