The International Telecommunications Union, that cartel of cosy state monopoly telephone companies leavened these days by mavericks from the UK and one or two other companies, seems to recognise that call charges are scandalously high, certainly from its Geneva headquarters: according to the Financial Times, of its six facsimile machines, only one can be used for sending as well as receiving, and it insists that all calls go through its switchboard operators, so that outside calls cannot be made after 7pm when its last operators go home, or on public holidays – perhaps Switzerland takes a medieval view of the habit of many Americans and Brits of working late into the night, and adhere to the ancient law, still on the English statute book until very recently, which made it an offence to be out and about when decent folk are abed.
