Planet Telecom
Published by totallygone.com on Saturday, October 26, 2002.

Flat sold, (almost) everything gone. The day's highlight was the engineer who came to connect the new occupier's phone and disconnect mine. He looked like the conceived in a cryo-jar lovechild of Charlton Heston (at the end of Planet of the Apes) and Norman Tebbit. Tall, lanky, crazed, and reeking as if he too had just discovered evidence of a recent Armageddon, en route to Mansfield St, Partick . Sporting tumbleweed hair, randomly lifting itself from his scalp in hopeful clumps, and emburdened by a once-yellow equipment bag quite literally encrusted with filth, Agent Z550022XY "Jim" (not his real name or #) made himself immediately at home and proceeded with his various procedures. I emanated hospitality after the style of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, and he, in turn, continued with his post-apocalyptic Heston, bulging eyes scanning the flat for signs of technology. Problems presented immediately, when he discovered no record of any disconnection/reconnection at HQ, in spite of a PREMATURE and deliberate cease of service that had left me incommunicado just one week ago. "Jim" passed me his engineer's handset, a yellow hybrid of dirty old telephone and millennia-old space weaponry, adorned with a leopard print of filthy fingermarks, so I could enlighten his supervisor. Said supervisor greeted me warmly with what was exactly the wrong question: "Do you have a reference number for this disconnection?"
This is about to turn into a long story, and I know you've only visited to find out if I've met the Dalai Lama or to see if I've been discovered by Bollywood yet, so I'll cut it short. In my state of being totally taken aback and vaguely incensed, I stepped back, ripping the 'phone from its socket and sending Jim/Tebbit/Heston into a great spasm of mirth (and cloud of dust). Vengeance was mine - naturally, it took nearly twenty minutes for him to get through again, only to find that he then had to get up, head off into the wetlands of Glasgow to find the nearest exchange, and get someone up there to pull a lever, flick a switch, and make the world a better place. Which he did. Some hours later he returned to collect his stuff and give me a five-minute lesson in history, politics and technology. If it weren't for Mrs T., such satellite treats as Six Feet Under and The Sopranos could have been beamed through your telephone line these past few years. And will be very soon.
You (probably) heard it here first.
This is about to turn into a long story, and I know you've only visited to find out if I've met the Dalai Lama or to see if I've been discovered by Bollywood yet, so I'll cut it short. In my state of being totally taken aback and vaguely incensed, I stepped back, ripping the 'phone from its socket and sending Jim/Tebbit/Heston into a great spasm of mirth (and cloud of dust). Vengeance was mine - naturally, it took nearly twenty minutes for him to get through again, only to find that he then had to get up, head off into the wetlands of Glasgow to find the nearest exchange, and get someone up there to pull a lever, flick a switch, and make the world a better place. Which he did. Some hours later he returned to collect his stuff and give me a five-minute lesson in history, politics and technology. If it weren't for Mrs T., such satellite treats as Six Feet Under and The Sopranos could have been beamed through your telephone line these past few years. And will be very soon.
You (probably) heard it here first.
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