Can machines laugh? yes.no.no.yes.yes.no.yes.yes.no.no......of for f*#ks sake. To hell with binary...

Wayne arrived back tonight and went straight onto the phone to speak to his mobile operator and find out why his mobile was not on line. He spent an hour and a half variously speaking to a machine and screaming at a machine. The same machine.

He still didn't get through.

After dinner, and a couple of glasses of his special reserve wine, (which one or two of you may be lucky enough to get a bottle of for Christmas), he declared that he would have another go. (!!!!) He spent another inordinately long time talking to a machine, and then he got through. It told him to phone back tomorrow! Ha ha. A-hem..sorry 'bout that Wayne.

It seems that the best way to actually make contact with some of these monolithic companies is to e-mail them. Its easier to get a mail address, and its a lot less stressful. The company in question (I'm all for naming and shaming) is OPTUS. It's an anagram for 'STOPU'. The parent of this uncooperative company is called 'Singtel', being based in Singapore. In the financial pages on their website it says that 'UPTOS' is 'investing for sustainable growth'. Obviously not in treating customers to decent service though....probably just a few dinners for the fat cats eh, to reward them for trimming off the excess fat of actually having a switchboard at all, let alone one that is swamped like all the other incredibly frustrating telecom companies.

I phoned the company. I got through to a machine that asked me to 'say clearly what the problem is after the tone'. I said 'Yes, my problem is that I can't speak to an operator'.... there was a short pause after which the machine said that it thought that I had a faulty operating system, was that correct? I replied that IT was my problem, and could I speak to a #*"~ing person please? There was a short pause after which the machine said (all very politely as you'd expect from a machine) that it was sorry, but it could not understand the problem. 'Exactly - I rest my case' said I. So i wrote an e-mail. They fixed the problem immediately.

The group CEO of Singtel is called 'Chua Sock Koong' and here's a picture of her in the nude:



PS...LIZZY! Daile was over the moon to hear from you. We love ya.
PPS. And everyone else out there in 'Good ol Blighty'...don't forget to e-mail us now and again! We're drying out here! chris@chrismartin.org