ADVANCED COMMUNICATIONS

ADVANCED C0MMUNICATI0NS 

Competition is a good thing, that's what I said when we were training our boys in khaki, and that's what I' ve always said. Character-forming, that's what competition is, and character is what's needed in the youth of today. Healthy competition stimulates growth, new ideas, keeps us on our toes! 

These large nationalised industries are too overstaffed, too inefficient, because they're totally lacking in swift communications, and communication is the life's blood of a good company, Must know exactly where your troops are, for instance, or it leads to chiefs who don't know what the damned Indians are up to! Privatise and trim off some fat; that's the ticket. Bank manager said, "Little tip in your shell-like: Buy some B.T. shares, buy plenty, can't lose out, old boy. Sell half, leave the rest to your daughter." Dammed good idea. Took his advice, and made a bit. Now they want fifty quid back to re-connect me 'phone. Obviously a blockage in the arteries somewhere, I mean it's not cricket, cutting me off like that, without warning, just because I forgot to settle the account. I'm a shareholder, entitled to better treatment. Simply an oversight, dog probably ate the bill, doesn't like the postman anyway.  

So here I am, feeling a bit lonely, wife away, like to speak to me daughter, and the damned instrument is as dead as a dodo, wires cut. Got to put on my mac and shank up the hill.  

Hullo, where's the old red box gone? Ah, now I remember, increased profits from the sale of shares has allowed them to start replacing our lovely old red telephone boxes, the ones with closing doors to hold in the smell of alcohol and stale tobacco that always made me feel more at home, with these new- fangled space age, vandal proof, three-sided, opened-bottomed, card operated cubes. Progress. Saw it on the tele. Can't leave anything alone, can they?. All done by some designer wallah, never been out in the field.  

But what's all this? Place is a damned disgrace. Advanced technology allows us to call anywhere in the world; bat we have to stand, ankle deep in chip papers, dog shit, fag cartons, squashed boxes containing the remains of once hot baked potatoes, the half-chewed bones of Colonel Sander's unhappy chickens that even the stray dogs have left, and worse still, those awful plastic trays smeared with bright yellow grease, which, we hope, is the residue of number forty-two with flied lice, and not what it appears to be. Seen much worse in the trenches, but it's not nice for the womenfolk, is it? Meanwhile, we get soaked to the skin by the driving rain, forced by the ever blowing gales into every corner of this high-tech refuge. Could do with me old gas cape, they don't make macs like they used to, proper oilskins are too expensive these days. It's a wonder B.T.'s apparatus works at all. Wait a minute....  

"All lines to Bangkok are temporarily engaged. Please try again later," croons a soothing female voice. Impossible, they can't be! It's about four o' clock in the morning there. Only my daughter can be up at this time. Try again. AH, it's ringing.  

"Hello, hallo, Alloa, Hiya!! God are you there? NO, didn't mean that, God; meant is that my daughter, is anyone there?" Loud computer noises...... it must be God. God is a computer, I've read it somewhere. Asimov? Hitch-hiker's guide? Didn't understand it, but admired that Dent chappie's cool. Ring off quickly and try again.  

Ah, female voice, loud and clear, strength ten.  

"Is that you. Dad? For God's sake, what are you ringing me for at this time. Has something happened?"  

A car full of youngsters has stopped directly outside the box, and the stupid driver is rev ving the engine up. They are trying to intimidate me, I know. Well I'm ready for them. I'm not moving from this pill box till I'm finished. I'll show 'em some mettle.  

"Chris, it's me, your dad."  

"I know. What is it? What's wrong?" I can hear her voice perfectly clear, as if she were in the same room. Especially with my finger in the other ear, the one that's a bit dicky from the noise of the shells.