Comments on: The Odeon Web Site

By: Andy Foot

Andy Foot — Mon, 15 May 2006 20:23:48 +0000

I have also emailed Odeon about poor service after they bullied a friend of mine into buying an adult ticket for a 13 year old girl because she wasn't carrying I.D. and couldn't prove she was under 15 (how many 13 year olds carry I.D?) No answer apart from an automated reply from Odeon so I have in my annoyance put a page on my own website to shout it out to anyone who passes by! http://www.andyfoot.com/odeoncinemabournemouth.htm

By: Brian Pink

Brian Pink — Tue, 02 May 2006 14:54:50 +0000

I have tried using Odeons site for a long time & got so sick and tired of it not working – like today for example . . .
I know lots of people who now don’t have the choice of a different cinema chain.
I know various friends/work colleagues now buy illegal DVDS – which I don’t do.
Odeon don’t want our custom.
They also rip us off at every stage. Coke, popcorn, and then still you for £7 or more to get in. . .
I have emailed Odeon to say how piss poor they are – yet again and don’t expect a reply.

Their website is down today. Maybe its being fixed? Somehow I doubt it . . .

By: John Malden

John Malden — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 09:34:32 +0000

I am not disabled but I can’t stand using Internet Exploiter. I just went to the Odeon site and it still does not work with Firefox. How many people are the Odeon trying to upset here for what must be a few hundred quid’s worth of website designer time. Even when you do use the evil IE, this website is piss poor using totally unintuitive “mouse hovering” and very slow scrolling boxes. That Mathew joke above was very believable because a 9 year old could write a better website.

By: jason fiore

jason fiore — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 09:26:24 +0000

hello my name is jason and i am doing a coursework assignment on customer servise for leisure and tourism and i was woundering if i could use this info on
the happenings and emails for my coursework on odeon can u please replyon my email
fiorechopper@hotmail.com
thanks alot
cheers

By: Official "for the love of Matthew" campaign

Official "for the love of Matthew" campaign — Sun, 03 Oct 2004 23:48:14 +0000

I write here to inform you of the really quite shocking actions being
perpetuated by the UK cinema chain Odeon against a disabled Scottish
boy Matthew Somerville.

9 year old Matthew suffers from the rare, medically unknown condition
of “Shatner�s Palsy” which attacks unoxygenated body tissue. Doctors are
working hard on a cure, but admit the possibility of a fatal remission
within 70 years. Despite this, Matthew continues to brighten the lives
of everyone he meets.

Incredibly, despite having weak arms, he is still able to operate a
computer using a specially constructed input device, consisting of a
covered spherical ball and a pair of single-pole-single-throw latches.
Resting his disabled hand on the tool, any small movements are converted
to gigabyte digital input signals.

The disabled boy constructed a special film portal for the disabled.
It was very popular, receiving over 100 “hits” a month. Webmaster
experts based at Durham University examined his JavaScript code and
proclaimed it “fully polymorphic and 100% XML ready”

Despite this, Odeon cinemas have ordered him to “cease and desist”
using the recently enacted European Millennium Copyright Act (EMCA) to
copyright the notion of “film discussion” by a person and/or persons
“without full limb mobility”. They have demanded his website is put in
the Windows XP recycle bin, and insisted “It shall then be emptied”.
Unsurprisingly, the move has been supported by the Internet Knowledge
Enforcement Agency (IKEA).

This cannot be allowed to happen. The disabled should have almost as
many rights as normal people, at least with regard to discussing films.
Luckily for us, people power works, and that�s where you come in.

How can you help disabled boy Matthew Somerville?
a) Email Odeon customer support (info@odeonuk.com) and tell them you are
boycotting their chain (Rocky 6 excepted) while they continue
their legal actions against disabled boys.
b) Email Odeon UK chairman Luke Vetere (lvetere@odeonuk.com) and insist
that the website be retrieved from the recycle bin, cleaned, and
uploaded back onto the UK internet web system using FTP packet protocols.
c) Email and post this message to everybody you know (several times), and
on every “blog” site you can find.
d) You can help Matthew in his separate quest to enter the “Guinness Book
of Records” with the record of “largest collection of cinema ticket
stubs”. Matthew is aiming for over a thousand. Send them, perhaps with
a letter of encouragement to

Matthew Somerville
Guinness Record Attempt
109 Eastern Drive
Edinburgh
EH7 1DA

Remember, only by working together can we can beat an evil law, and
brighten the failing heart of a young disabled angel.

I’m going to leave this comment because it’s pretty funny, but please remember this is a joke, not real information. ~ Lee

By: Lee

Lee — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 19:48:02 +0000

I shot over and listened to the programme Andy suggested (I’m not usually a Radio 4 listener, but with the Hitchhiker’s Guide airing soon I could be shortly). Fascinating. Odeon flatly deny their site is inaccessible (though no one from the company appears on the show) and state their usual reasons for asking Matthew to take his site down — personal data concerns and people thinking it was affiliated with Odeon.

So, the stuff about them working on improving it has been bullshit all this time then.

I feel some emails coming on!

By: Andy Mabbett

Andy Mabbett — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:15:18 +0000

Item about this on Radio 4’s “Today” programme this morning – you can listen to a Real Audio stream, but only until tomorrow’s programme airs, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/; it’s part of the 8.44am “business update “.

I only caught the end, and cant get Real Audio on this PC, but apparently Odeon claim that their website is “not inaccessible”!

By: Isofarro

Isofarro — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 12:56:14 +0000

Alex Fowler wrote: “To much play is being made of the fact that Matthew Sommerville is disabled, as if this means copyright/trademark law shouldn�t apply to him. Perhaps he�d have a different stance if someone was ripping off *his* site!”

Get your facts straight. Matthew Somerville isn’t disabled, nor was he ripping off another site’s content. His website clearly indicated that the material was from the Odeon website, and he has made it accessible.

By: Alex Fowler

Alex Fowler — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:57:16 +0000

To much play is being made of the fact that Matthew Sommerville is disabled, as if this means copyright/trademark law shouldn’t apply to him. Perhaps he’d have a different stance if someone was ripping off *his* site!

By: duncan

duncan — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 21:21:44 +0000

The substitute website was illegal and we were getting a number of complaints from customers who thought it was the official website. Personal details were being collected under the �Odeon� banner, a clear breach of the data protection act and very worrying.

a number being how many? Two? Are they perhaps worried that Matthew’s site was performing well in the search engines (currently 4th in Google for ‘odeon’, and I’d guess possibly higher ranking than odeon.co.uk on certain queries).