Alexander Graham Bell where are you?
I bought a new phone last week.
No, it wasn’t one of those fancy mobile yokes that people brag about but rather a good old fashioned land-line one. Except that it is cordless and has two phones for the price of one [one for me and one for Herself].
We had a similar setup for years but recently one of the pair of us spilled water all over one of the handsets, and it wasn’t me. Not that I’m accusing Herself of anything naturally. Anyhows the display went belly-up on it which rendered it useless as you couldn’t tell whether it was on or off the hook as it were. Also the internal phonebook was unreadable and it was impossible to see what number was being dialled. It was fucked.
I went to get an exact replacement, but of course that model was long out of print. I had to settle for a different make. And of course the different make was completely different from the old one.
Anyways, when I got home I opened the quite small box to discover it was a bit of a Tardis. I was soon surrounded by plastic bags, little sticky plastic strips that they insist on putting on anything shiny, little twisty wire ties and cardboard. I also had two mains leads, two chargers, two little docking thingies, a couple of cables with different plugs on each end and of course two handsets. I plugged ’em in and set about setting them up. That’s where the troubles began.
After faffing around for a while trying to make sense of it all, I had to concede defeat. Now don’t castigate me for this – I know manuals are for women and wimps but I was desperate. I looked through all the rubbish that was now cluttering the floor and found another plastic bag containing three papery things. One was a declaration of EU compliance which I easily could have done without and promptly went into the bin. One was a warranty thing which is destined to be lost if ever I need it and one was the Short User Manual.
I sat back to read the Short User Manual and it was just that – short. Basically it told me how to insert the batteries and which end to talk into. There was also a bit about mains electricity being dangerous and how I mustn’t throw dead batteries in the fire [why not?] but there was fuck all on how to set up the phone properly. They did include a diagram showing all the buttons and all their names but fuck all about how to use them.
I looked for the Long User Manual but of course there wasn’t one. I took to the Interweb and actually found a Long User Manual [good old Interweb – how did we exist without you?] However I discovered why they didn’t include it in the original box – it would have required a second box of its own as it’s around 40 pages of small print long. I couldn’t be bothered printing it off as I’m running low on paper. So I am back to sheer experimentation.
I have it sort of working now. I got my first phone call. It was from Herself in the attic looking for food. She can wait ’til I’m hungry.
I got another call from Daughter who discovered I had an answering machine that I didn’t know about. She gave out to me for having a bland generic message and said I should make it more friendly. Seeing as I didn’t know it’s there I’m going to have one hell of a job trying to find how to stick my own little witticisms on it.
The handsets are much lighter and slimmer than the old ones.
All the better for getting lost down the side of the cushion.
I opened the quite small box
Was it something like this box GD?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B2wPxSyU4E
Jayzus Darryl! Do you collect those?
Do you collect those?
I’ve got a youtube clip for almost every occasion. I assume that’s what you’re referring to collecting, or was it boxes?
You collect mutant soft porn??! You sick f*ck! Bad enough she flaunted her hideous deformity but a ginger Daywalker wearing an orange bikini playing with her box is beyond tasteless.
Heh!
I have made a point having cordless ‘home phones’ since 2003 – a legacy of my adulterous liaison with a
French…sorry Cherie I meant of course Parisian girl. She was a gadget geek living in London and to me, from Northest Norfuk, her cordless phones seemed a marvel of practicality….truly I was living in age of miracles and wonders. That said we’ve had our current set of home phones for a couple of years now and I still haven’t discovered the ‘last number redial’ function …..I really must google…If one is ever involved in adulterous liaisons, it becomes more important that one’s spouse never discovers the ‘last number redial’ function.
I did discover that the last number facility can be quite dangerous – apparently it stores the last ten numbers! I haven’t come across that one before.
A bit of telephone trivia for you: AGB personally thought one might answer the phone with a naval “Ahoy”,thankfully that idea never took off….except in Germany. German dare devils who like to live on the edge answer the phone not, as the law dictates, with their surname (or if they happen to answer the phone at someone else’s house they would say ‘@ *whatever the surnames of the householder is*) but with a cheery ‘AHOI!’….casting all convention to the wind.
Answering the phone with my habitual simple ‘Ja?’ was guaranteed to offend my German Mother-in-Law 🙂
The advantage of caller display is that I’m able to shout “Howya John!” or whatever. Withheld numbers are treated with the gravest suspicion and usually answered with a grunt [cold callers love withholding their numbers. The rest get a “‘Lo”.
I simply ignore withheld numbers; if they don’t leave a message then sod ’em. Other numbers which I don’t recognise are entered into Google and around 80%+ come up as reported scammers. Anyone of value has my mobile number and is in my address book.
I’m very wary of doing that. An emergency or accident situation is exactly when a family member or friend, or even a stranger/hospital/police, might try and make contact on an unknown number and need your immediate attention.
A message would invariably be left in such circumstances, giving me the opportunity to either pick up the handset and take the call, or call back – depending on the situation.
Another bit of telephone trivia for you:
Don’t forget that the batteries you had to insert ONLY POWER THE HANDSET! Unless the base unit also has provision for a back-up set of batteries, you won’t be using your “much lighter and slimmer handset” to call the ‘leccy company when the power goes off.
A wise person ALWAYS has a POT phone handy (even if it’s gathering dust in a cupboard)…
Yup. Base station is plugged into the mains. However, my phone line is via fibre which comes from a box outside my gate [which has its own power supply]. Ergo, if power goes then more than likely the line would be dead anyway. There is always my mobile!
All my (antique) phones, you know – with dials that kids lke to try and press the numbers in work off my 2nd-hand Panasonic 616 PBX (Private Branch Exchange – home switchbox), its all fine and dandy and fun till the electricity has a down, then all the landlines off it are NF. I have to keep a spare BT linesmans test set near the entry socket in case of a power outtage.
Then the test runs off the landline 70V current.
BTW the correct way to answer ones phone in the good old days was your exchange and number – eg “Donaldson 22″…
That really makes telemarketers piss boil!