Stuffed avvocato
UPDATE: The Royal Opera has apologized to Intermezzo!
Sister blog Intermezzo has run up against one of those occasional but annoying bumps in the information superhighway, the sad sort of creature known as the opera house’s “head of business and legal affairs,” whose days and nights are spent firing off officious, legalistic and (in this case) misspelled emails trying to hinder the spread of information. And we all know how vain an endeavor that is, don’t we? Anyway, La Cieca is confident the cher public will offer ‘Mezzo their support during her moment of crise.
Ugh. Intermezzo should pass this correspondence on to the good people at Private Eye, Britain’s leading satirical magazine. I hope they do, the Eye is a past master at demolishing the pompous asses of the legal world. [Libel and intellectual property bods a speciality.]
On a more cheerful note, let’s all raise a glass and wish a Happy Birthday to Sir Thomas Allen – 66 today.
Apropos Private Eye – here is the link to the ultimate answer to threats :
http://countlazarus.wordpress.com/2006/11/20/arkell-v-pressdram/
This being said, I have written to both Intermezzo and the Royal Opera House and there seems to be a furore on Twitter and generally online. Seems that an illiterate jobsworth at the ROH has been at best clumsy in handling this affair.
Thanks a lot, manou – very quick off the mark! ASh yes – Arkell v Pressdram, the old favourite.
Do you remember their battles with the late libel lawyer Peter Carter-Ruck, the litigant’s friend, (who lost control of his practice late in life if I rscall, poor poppet)? The Eye used to call him Carter-Fuck – not especially hilarious, but he must have regretted sending them a ‘cease and desist’ letter about it. They published his complaint together with the deathless comeback, “Happy to oblige, Mister Farter-Fuck!”
Now, that’s the way to do it.
I do indeed remember all of the Eye escapades and brushes with justice.
Intermezzo is well worth a look
http://intermezzo.typepad.com/intermezzo/
with nearly a hundred outraged comments.
Twitter comments are that the ROH has shot itself in both feet with a machine gun, not to mention the more creative suggestion “I vote we stage Mr Avory’s threatening email as a libretto & hire a Tenor to deliver it outside ROH – what do you think?”
Boo! Hiss!
That aggressive pretentious pr..k to do with the R.O.H, wanting to be legally rabid towaards others, should be immediately fired. Yes sent to the dole queue immediately. Perhaps it imagines itself as Lucia, Electra, Turandot and Medea rolled into one big scream queen- itself! Just another example of a pompous tin-pot god Pom thinking it is ‘of higher station in Life’…….L.O.L. Who cannot but vividly remember the laugh a minute TV series program, about that totally dysfunctional heavily government subsided place? I am surprised it has not gone arse -up yet.
What a bunch of hardassed bullies. It sounds like the legal firm for the ROH needs to try to justify the fees they are squeezing out of the ROH.
This sounds similar to when the Met’s legal bullies turned there sites on John Patterson some years back for his metmaniac site. He had the nerve to list all the radio and tv broadcasts from the Met back to the beginning of the technology. And what harm was that?
I wrote a letter to the Met board back then complaining
that the lawyers’ claims were weak, unreasonable, and actually contrary towards trying to drum up interest in the Met’s current offerings as well as their history.
Fortunately, the Met’s lawyers backed off.
Here’s hoping the the ROH legal staff can find something more productive to do than harass Intermezzo for trying to raise interest in the offerings at the ROH.
Boo!
Bombard the Royal Opera House website with complaints.
Will do, Harry – and good suggestion from manou at 1.1.1.1
I’ve emailed the legal staff member in question, as well as the Director of Press and Communications, the Director of Marketing and the Head of Friends (as many commentors at Intermezzo have complained that they’re likely to let their Friends memberships lapse in regards to this incident.)
When I say “I’ve emailed,” what I really mean is “get off your butt and fire off a quickie to some old farts and tarts at ROH with the aim of, at the very least, giving them a few hundred new emails to read in the morning.”
I did the same thing and it felt so good.
Is there a “fucking litigious brits” tag?
It worked – they are apologizing now:
http://www.roh.org.uk/uploadedFiles/Press_and_Media/Press_Releases/INTERMEZZO.pdf
The Royal Opera has now apologized to Inter_Mezzo, both on twitter and by a press release. Mr George Avory has now been moved to other duties. Please introduce yourself when you next check in your coat at the cloakroom.
79CXR: Cloakroom? Nah! That’s too high a position of relegation for this Mr Avory Esq. He should be the person appointed to clean the mens’ rooms.
He can play his silly ego games of demarcation there. If he then similarly played up ….. someone busy, standing at the urinal could give him quick swift retribution for such insolent stroppiness. By simply turning around, taking aim and ‘continuing’.
The power of the internet! Yippee! That must be the fastest apology on record. Keep up the good work to all of these sites including La Cieca!
I sent the Email to the ROH produced below. I wonder if Harry and Betsy-Ann will give me good references?
Since it would appear that your Mr. George Avory has little sense, I assume that his position will soon be open and I should like to apply for it. To whom should I direct my resume?
By the way, the information about Mr. Avory was gained from a web address outside the UK, so I am not worried about whether either the producer of that site or I might be banned from attendance at any of your productions.
Bluessweet I also gave R.O.H on their site ‘a good slam’. They could issue a order to ban me for life from entering…I don’t care. Just look at their deteriorating standards, represented by their ‘sh*t productions’.
To think that the real powers in any opera house in the World would take umbrage at enthusiasts like Intermezzo giving them free publicity!! Any claim of a slight slip-up in acknowledgment or misunderstanding that may occur, is usually handled by a kind reminder or query in the Arts world.
But then generally they do not have the services of a clot to this degree, like this ‘Mr Importance’ Avory to contend with. He should have to go to hospital to get the staff to surgically extricate the R.O.H administrative boot jammed up his constipated backside. He would probably tell them he had ‘an Cenerentola accident’: trying on for size , Cinderella’s shoe in the prop department.
In fairness to the Royal Opera, they have reacted quickly in less than 18 hours since the story was posted by Intermezzo late last night. One mans actions have caused a day of headaches to the organization, the majority of ROH big wigs are in Japan for the tour, its opening night of the season in London, broadcast live across the globe and due to the misguided judgement of an individual employed to protect the ROH body of work, its all been overshadowed by this.
So I applaud the ROH for acting as fast as it could on this under the circumstances and I hope that this will be the end of it. The power of blogs & twitter has proved that all organizations need to be aware, that it’s wise not to bite the hand that feeds them.
As for Mr Avory, if he was on fire, I wouldn’t waste my piss on him.