REMEMBERING PHOEBE

Tonight I have felt like Phoebe from "Friends" in "the one where" she is left on hold on the phone, believing that her call is the next to be answered, for something like 48 hours! I am just like Phoebe - I won't give up.

If you thought that British phone queues were irritating, they are nothing as compared to the ways Telecom Italia has dreamt up to give you a heart attack! Unable to get an internet connection for several hours tonight, I eventually called their "free 24/7 number" and first of all you get a message informing you that you can go to their website to get help with all your problems; fine, if your problem is not that you can't get onto the internet because of them in the first place. Then you press 2 to indicate that you have a technical problem, then 2 again to indicate it's to do with the internet and you key in your number. [During all this time the music played is very fast and snazzy; I guess that's done to con you into thinking you will get help soon.] After all this, you get, "Sorry, no one available, please try later". So I try later [later to me being about 50 seconds after this message and am I beginning to sound like Tony Soprano, writing in the present tense?] and this time, after going through the above preamble, I think I am striking lucky, as after I key in my number, I get Frank Sinatra singing "The Way You Look Tonight" and I almost cheer up, especially as the message now says, "Please hold and the first operator available will answer your call". "Phoebe", I think, "there is hope!" They keep me on hold, intermittently receiving this reassurance, for 15 minutes. [I timed it.] Then I get, "Sorry, no one available, please try later" again. Liars! I try this for an hour and a half, then give up and go and cook Italian sausages with marinated chicken [see next post], and just the physical act of doing this makes me feel better.

As you see, I am back on now. I guess the problem has been the rientro - all of Italy arriving home from holiday and checking into their email!