Crossed Wires - my struggles with the telephone (Cecilia Peartree)
The telephone is a brilliant invention, of course, not to mention the infrastructure around it that has led to the development of various other means of communication such as the intranet. It's hard to imagine not being able to ring the doctor or the vet in case of emergency, or to use a mobile phone to establish where someone is in a crowded or strange place. As a family we have often used mobile technology at Alton Towers theme park to establish that someone is still in the queue for Nemesis or some other ride unsuitable for people with blood pressure of any kind. I try not to use the phone if I can avoid it these days, having had various bad experiences with it over the years. More bad news than good news has tended to arrive by phone, particularly as all the other members of my birth family have died unexpectedly and often in odd places. I can recall exactly where I was when the news of each of their deaths reached me: standing in the hallway of my shared flat in Swiss Co...