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

The first thing *everyone* does with a phone book is check their own entry.
In the latter half of the 20th Century, there was a tendency for low-grade television shows and pub hardmen to show your strength by seeing if you could rip a phone directory in two with your bare hands. As far as anyone could tell, the only real outcome of this was a doubling in the time it took for you to find the number you were looking for.
Presumably these strong men had checked their own entry first.

Have you ever seen someone tear a phone book ?!?
(or done it yourself)????

Because I've got one here
and I'll do it live and uncut...!!!!

For the public a once in a life time
chance to see...ur...ummm...read
about the live event of phone book tearing!!!!

Here I go * Well I can't do it lucky realy as I haven't checked my number...tut,tut.....

*At this point Lush starts to strain and all his neck vains pop out the ide of his neck and it's pretty ugly and I won't begin to describe it.

Anyway

Am I alone? i have never once checked my own entry in the phone book, nor had the idea occured to me.

I have found, however that a phone book can be a very economical weapon, and that, if carefully placed on a shelf above your front door, it will fall at random intervals and concuss whoever happens to be standing below.

The last time I looked in a phone book was for the number of a branch of Barclays Bank. This turned out not to be anything to do with the branch I was after and was the overall number for a regional call centre that handled virtually everything you could ever desire (in the world of banking that is). It turned out that the only thing the local branch did was advise about basic deposits and withdrawals - anything else required a regional person. Therefore what's the point of a phone book entry? All you need is one number and for a bank this is usually found on your statement. If you ask me it's all a conspiracy to denude the world of trees.

A strange concept, the banking regional call centre. It's a good example of lowest common denominator thinking:

"Personal accounts don't make any real money for us....let's populate a building with temps who know nothing whatsoever about banking, and have absolutely no knowledge of our customers or their history with the branch. To make things even more complicated, let us ensure that any remotely difficult questions must be routed back to the original bank branch, via the Call Centre, allowing for maximum confusion along the way. Just in case that looks too easy, let us invent "Call Waiting" queues, where the hapless customer is kept dangling for hours, listening to popular classics in order to numb the tedium.

Then we'll let the branches sort out the mess."