Dolf Grunbauer <dolf@idca.tds.philips.nl> (08/15/90)
Patrick, A couple of weeks ago the following article was published in one of our newspapers: "De Volkskrant", in the column "Dag In, Dag Uit". Here is my translation of the article: Telefonica, the Spanish telephone company, was astonished. "Stoned by sniffing our telephones? Is that possible? Please don't spread it around! Otherwise no telephone booth will survive", a spokesman begged in vain. Spain's Conservative Party will make some questions about this telephone sniffing in the Parliament. The rumour started in Granada. A local newspaper stated that drug adicts were responsible for the sharp increase of vandalism of public telephone booths. A telephone technician said "They break the hearing part out of the telephone and burn the parts because the smoke has a narcotic influance with which they get stoned." His bosses immediately denied it and did counter research. This revealed that no "strange parts" were used in the telephone making. Still the rumour was all around Spain. The PTT acknowledges the increase of repairs of telephone booths. The police thinks that the rumour has started due to the fact that in Granada an old fashioned glue was used to glue the telephone horns together. So it is a variant on the old glue sniffing. No one has been able to prove that Spanish youngsters did get stoned due to the Spanish PTT, like the Spanish opposition keeps on claiming. The Spanish people will desperatly have to search for an undamaged telephone booth as long as the rage of the telephone sniffers lasts. Dolf Grunbauer Tel: +31 55 433233 Internet dolf@idca.tds.philips.nl Philips Information Systems UUCP ...!mcsun!philapd!dolf