A lot to answer for

He really has - Alexander Graham Bell, that is. Just think of all those millions of telephones around the world and what a dreadful cacophony of noise there would be if they all rang at the same time and in the same place. Come to think of it, that wouldn't be possible, would it? Only half of them could ring at once, because the other half would be used to make the calls. I suppose what I am really trying to say in a rambling and rumbunctious sort of way is that our phone line developed another fault yesterday. Coincidentally, when I rang to report it I got straight through to the very nice Scottish lass to whom I spoke on Saturday. She was very apologetic and thanked me profusely for my patience, but she could not get an engineer to me until Wednesday (this was about 4.30 on Monday afternoon). Then she discovered that she could get one out to us during Tuesday afternoon. She told me that she would be off on Tuesday, but promised to ring me on Wednesday to make sure everything is alright. Less than an hour later, a telephone engineer was at the door. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to fix the problem, but at 8.30 this morning - Tuesday, just in case you've got confused (and I know how easy that is) - another engineer arrived and eventually traced the fault. My cynical side wonders how long till it crops up again, but I am nonetheless impressed with the standard of service we have received - so far. Except for Lawrence, of course, who was in the call centre I spoke to on Friday and who was completely useless.