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

I live & work in London, and in my desk drawer are around 350 business cards. These all have my phone & fax numbers starting 0171, but as all British readers will know, Brtitish Telecom has some sort of deal with the printing industry whereby they change our phone numbers every so often & make all business stationery obsolete.

I estimate that between now and July, when London phone numbers change for the third time in about 10 years, I will give 15-20 of these to genuine business contacts, a similar number to friends when I can't find a pen, and put a similar number again in restaurants' prize draw boxes. This means that in July I will have around 300 5x8.5cm pieces of card that have no real use.

Now it seems to me that 300 5x8.5cm pieces of card should have some sort of comedy potential, but rack my brains as I might, I can't think of a comedy use for them. Can anyone help? Perhaps someone could come up with a peice of comedy utilising all the useless business cards in London, Cardiff, Coventry, Pirtsmouth, Southampton and Northern Ireland.

As I write this, it occurs to me that perhaps it should involve sending them all to BT. "Well, they're no use to me any more, you might as well have them..."

A friend of mine once came up with a process he titled "How to Disable a Phone Using Three Pads of Mini-Sized Post-Its(tm)". I'm sure you could develop something similar...

-- Please be kind to my children - recycle.

Do you know anyone who has ever finished a pack of business cards? Even without BT, most firms change their logo more often than you can give the poxy things away

My friends once had a massive battle with dozens of Lucky/Sav-On Rewards cards. Perhaps you could get some chums together and do something similar.

A co-worker of mine finishes several a year. Of course it may have something to do with him leaving his open box near the exit door on Friday afternoons before the office gang heads out for a weekend of debauchery. He hasn't complained and he does get a lot of calls.