h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Once you've done harassing the insurance agent over the phone, you should then pretend that your telephone is nonexistent. Under no circumstances should you actually answer a ringing phone, as it will probably be an irate creditor on the other end.

Note that in the US, if all of your creditors are big companies, it is getting safe to ignore this advice. That's because they're all using automatic machines to do the dialing. These work by calling you, listening for a human voice, and then transfering the call to a human being (well, a bill collector, anyhow). So you can listen for that telltale moment of dead air after you say "Hello?" and hang up before the process is completed.

Actually you _can_ manage without a phone at all. I may be the only person in HK without a land line and I didn't buy a mobile until I had been here 8 months. Why? I have an acute phobia (if that's possible) caused by the Bulgarians suddenly turning my $50 monthly bill into one that would have been possible only if I had spent every waking hour on the phone to England. They don't have itemised bills,so I paid up and had it cut off.

I agree that you can manage without a phone at all. At one time I had my phone disconnected for failure to pay and did not get it reconnected for several months. During the period of disconnection, I actually got married. When I eventually got my phone back on it was only because I was going on maternity leave and may have had to contact my husband at short notice and then most of the people I owed money to were still looking for me under my maiden name.

Either everyone on this forum is suffering from some allergy to work, or you're all just deadbeats. Why not just pay your bills? I will agree with anyone who wants to argue that corporations will do everthing in their power to avoid paying you money they owe you, but as my ol' pappy used to say: "If you give a dance, you gotta pay the band."

I have always paid all my bills on time, but over the last few years I have realised how stupid it is to pay on time rather than at the last possible moment.I have also noticed how many mistakes there are in utilities bills since privatisationand they are NEVER in my favour and I NEVER get an apology.

I would love to have the money on hand to pay all of my bills (and no, I do not order ANYTHING - I am talking amenities only ie. phone, water, power, mortgage, council rates, and still having money for groceries and transport including petrol, rego, insurance, maintenance and repairs etc) but at that time I was trying to pay for the modest wedding we had as well as clothing my husbands other two children and keeping them in school which is also very expensive. Both my husband and I have jobs and don't waste money on cigarettes, alcohol, random socialising, take-away food, movies or anything that your stereo-typing would suggest. We are currently doing this now without my income as I mentioned that I am on maternity leave although my husband has taken up a second job at 4am and I have actually been able to keep the phone on since. I take offence to your generalisations and would like to suggest that you think before you share your judgemental comments.

Changing the subject a bit here.

I may be a bit thick but I was wondering how do people without telephones connect to the Internet so as to access h2g2 to argue about the merits of not having telephones?

In my case they (are encouraged to) use the computer at work. I think of this as stealing and am seriously worried about it on alternate days,but the uni encourages use of the net for teaching/research and local telephone calls in HK are free (so I'm rather surprised that I seem to be the only HK-based researcher)

A large part of the internet in the UK is JANET (the Joint Academic Network) which links all the universities.
This was paid for by taxpayers money and installed by the then government owned telecoms company (BT) at a profit. The company in turn was sold at below market price with the taxpayer essentially footing the bill again and has gone on to amass huge profits...so any UK based university student or academic using the net for free should have no guild whatsoever....and I'm fairly certain that HK is little different .

You're positively defensive. How many children do you have? You certainly seem to be able to afford a computer. As for generalising, anyone who disagrees with you must smoke and drink and "generally" waste money.

I am perplexed as to how you arrived at your conclusions and am surprised that you are still making assumptions. My last post was intended to indicate that it is often unwise to pass judgement before knowing all of the facts but you seem to have again done so in your last reply. As this is not a forum for childish bickering I do not feel the need to continue this any further.