PEOPLE who hang up when they meet an answering machine, or even sometimes even when they meet a human voice on the phone, should be hanged themselves.
But their day is nearly over. These days in England if you have rushed in the door, dropped the parcels and clawed your way to the phone only to have the person hang up the moment you gasp out your number, there is now a number you dial and lo and behold, don't you get the number of the friend who has just hung up. That will soften the cough of those people who can't be bothered to leave a few short and courteous words on the answering machine to say who they were or indeed are. The people who hear the sound of your voice and are overcome with loathing to the point that they have to ring off may think differently now that you can trace them.
With this kind of recall facility, you can now ring them back and bite the nose off them. Because it is irritating, insensitive and, actually, an unbalanced thing to do - to call someone and hang up.
You don't suddenly shout "Hey!" to someone in the street and then turn away and clam up when the person turns round to know where the greeting is coming from. That's the act of a mad or a very rude person indeed.
It's something I feel very strongly about, and I thought everyone else felt the same way.
This is not so.
One woman tells me she hangs up on answering machines because she doesn't feel witty enough to speak to them.
That's great. So we have to feel witty these days before we open our mouths to machines. Any old rubbish will do in a one-to-one with a human, but a machine has to be entertained?
Actually people hate anyone who tries to be witty on machines. It rarely works. I know someone who used to say: "Hello little machine, can you tell your master and mistress that they got a call ... " And it was wince-inducing. Well, he used to say that until he got a machine of his own. After that he got normal like the rest of us.
Another friend says she doesn't like to leave personal details and private information on a machine. I couldn't agree more - I would hate to come home and hear that someone had an antisocial disease, had a cheque bounced, had drunk three Tequila Sunrises too many and wasn't sure how the sun had set. These are matters best discussed personally, and maybe not even on the phone at all. But couldn't she say: "This is Thursday at 8 p.m. X rang for a chat." Unless paranoia has taken over completely, that's not going to make anyone think she has been indiscreet.
OH well, it's all very well talking about things in England, you might say When will it happen here? How long will it be before we too can track down the devils who drive us up the wall wondering who they are?
Not long.
It will be with us this year. We won't need to send our phones in to have little operations on them or anything, it can all be done through local exchanges with software.
These gadgets are to be welcomed lovingly and not resisted. After all, they will not only put an end to our curiosity, they have a real value as well. What kind of thicko will make a nuisance call any more when he knows that the frightened recipient only has to dial three or four digits and the number of the nuisance caller will be revealed.
AND there's another marvellous thing on the cards called C.L.I. which means Calling Line Identification. That's even better - it's like a little screen on your phone and as soon as someone rings . .. their number is there in front of you. And even further joy - if it's someone you hate, then you needn't answer at all. It doesn't give a picture of them yet, or their full name. Not yet.
I think that's a terrific idea, or I did until someone said to me ... suppose you decided to ring six people and there was no reply from any of them, would you begin to think they had all identified your number, put their head in their hands, and saying "No way," let the thing ring on and on?
But I think you have to be courageous about this. I mean, if you thought about it too deeply you might never go out the door in case someone who knew you would fling themselves into shop doors or down side streets rather than meet you.
We have to have some confidence about ourselves.
I would love this little screen, I'd like, it now, this minute. Then I'd know who was ringing.
Is it one of my sisters for a chat?
Is it the magazine that is wondering where the article is?
Is it a number with a Galway prefix?
I would like to get one NOW.
But you can't get them yet, they say soothingly. There is a pilot scheme in Cork. I don't know why they need a pilot, to be honest. This is such an obvious and, indeed, overdue idea to save our sanity, it's not really something that people should test out and maybe take sides on.
If I ran Telecom I'd have just introduced it at once for everyone in the land, instead of, only allowing Cork people to look at it, muse on it, try it out and eventually pronounce on it. But thats the way it was done, and we just have to wait and hope that these 35,000 Cork people who have been able to unmask these anonymous callers and know who was ringing them since their pilot scheme was introduced last November will speak up quickly for the rest of us and say that its an inalienable right for all who use the phone.
If they are going to be available to the rest of us eventually it will cost almost £90 to get one of the screen type C.L.I. phones fitted - like the cost of a nice new phone they say. It may get cheaper later, like everything does. Remember what the first calculators cost all those years ago.
But the number which you, can ring back to know who has just rung you, will be free when we do get it, as it should be.
After all the Gardai deal with kids who knock at your door, and run away, so if there's going to be no legislation against those who phone and run away, then at least give us the satisfaction of knowing who they are.