British Telecommunications Plc and the UK Post Office Corporation have a lot in common with the democratic system they may be very bad, but all the others are so much worse: we all know that the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom is the finest phone company in the world – one of our subscribers used to write to put us right if we suggested otherwise, and we’re very impressed with the tale told by one of the Evening Standard’s German correspondents; as a journalist, she thought she should have an answering machine, and was a little surprised to find she needed written permission to plug the thing in first; the application took 10 weeks to fail to get a response, so she decided to go freelance, and a friend of a friend installed a very unofficial Matsushita Electric Industrial Co machine; unfortunately, the only person to receive the cheery recorded message was the lady in the flat three floors down on her party (!) line; the good Frau duly informed the authorities, which promptly cut off the party line, and will get around to fixing it one of these months.
