ch@dce.ie (Charles Bryant) (11/19/90)
The following article is excerpted from "The Saturday Column" of "The Irish Times", November 17th - a column with a humorous slant. (Mary Robinson was recently elected President. She is not a member of any party, but was supported by the parties of the left). More Telephonic Paranoia Two well known lefties were cruelly disturbed in the midst of their separate Mary Robinson celebrations last weekend. Both received phone calls of such a frightening nature that they took the matter up with the telephone authorities first thing on Monday morning. The cause of their concern was that their phones would ring and when answered the only reply they got was their own voices coming back at them. One of the recipients even had his baby's background cries played back down the line. As this disturbance occurred up to a dozen times over the weekend a certain paranoia took hold which led them to believe that maybe the forces of the right were indeed plotting a coup. President Allende and all that befell him, and his supporters, sprang to mind. The excitement died quickly when Bord Telecom was contacted. They told the two concerned lefties, who were now on the point of organising resistance, that they had received hundreds of such worried calls from paranoid householders. Nothing sinister was afoot. A weird technical fault meant that most incoming calls from overseas were creating this response on Irish phones. "But surely the Special Branch..." the lefties ventured. Not at all, said Telecom. Charles Bryant (ch@dce.ie)
patrick@cs.cornell.edu (Pat Stephenson) (11/19/90)
Charles Bryant writes: (Story of paranoid politicians deleted) >The excitement died quickly when Bord Telecom was contacted. They told >the two concerned lefties, who were now on the point of organising >resistance, that they had received hundreds of such worried calls from >paranoid householders. Nothing sinister was afoot. A weird technical >fault meant that most incoming calls from overseas were creating this >response on Irish phones. "But surely the Special Branch..." the >lefties ventured. Not at all, said Telecom. I can vouch for this. I made several attempts to dial directly to Dublin on Sunday 12th and Monday 13th November. I got complete silence at the other end - no intercept, no busy. Eventually I placed a call through the operator, which did go through (with LOUSY quality, but at this point I wasn't being picky...). The people at the other end reported exactly the behaviour mentioned above. Pat Stephenson