SYDNEYSIDE WITH JANET PARR Boom in dialling services

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32848, 23 February 1972, Page 7

SYDNEYSIDE WITH JANET PARR Boom in dialling services

I’ve always liked that saying about Satan finding mischief for idle hands. It’s nice to have someone else to blame for a few of your sins of commission. Sins of omission are much harder on the conscience. Nobody’s at fault there but yourself.

But it wasn’t so much a case of idle hands as a convalescent leg and a stopped clock that set me off on what turned out to be a positive orgy of spinning the telephone dial. I was checking the number for the recorded time clock: “At the third stroke it will be 5.59 and five seconds, pip, pip, pip . . .” And there on page nine of the telephone directory was a whole list qf delights to be sampled at the cost of a four cent phone call each, starting with Bible Gems with Melody and ending with the Weather. So much for getting in front of Satan and resisting temptation. I rang the lot. At the end of an hour or so I had been read to, prayed over, learned how to concoct Spanish lamb, been exhorted to test the delights of Thredbo in the summer time (Thredbo is better known for ski-ing), knew what was playing in the , city’s theatres and cinemas!, and that it was too wet fori! cricket in Brisbane. I knew, J briefly it’s true, what was ( going on elsewhere in the world and the latest state of the stock market. I had heard . four of a local radio station’s selection of “Top 40 ’ pops. ALL SORTS ‘ It didn’t really seem that ; one could ask for much more, that it was pretty good value i for a mere 80 cents or so, ] although this “Dial A ...” ; business blossoms in some 1 other new and exotic ways s both here and elsewhere. 1 There are, I know, numbers that you can dial for a com-1 plete meal to be brought [ round at some specified hour; j numbers no object. There are f out-of-hours numbers you can < dial for information on real i estate, insurance, overseas ( holidays and used cars and J brochures on how to make [ money by investing in mutual t funds. My neighbour, lost < between a bewilderment of t controls and a confusing t handbook for her new stereo, r rang the store and got step- i by-step instructions from the i salesman until she came to r the bit she was doing wrong, t Having righted it she gave c him a sample of the result a (over the phone, of course) f and has lived happily with it ever since. . a

In Sydney we haven’t got round to thinking about the “Dial A Bus” scheme that Adelaide may have one day. The South Australian Government has commissioned the first stage of a study of proposals for the scheme under which commuters would be able to call up a

bus by telephoning a central computerised control. The control would work out which bus was nearest the caller and divert it to pick him up. It sounds even more interesting than the system they’ve started in Rome and Milan whereby motorists can ring up to find which is the least congested route to where they want to go. But Sydney doctors and the Sydney public are now able to dial to find out what private hospitals and nursing homes have vacant beds. This “dial-a-bed” system came into service towards the end of last year to overcome some of the problems of hospital overcrowding. DAILY RECORD A central ' organisation keeps a daily record of all vacant beds in private hospitals and nursing homes, linked with a detailed index system of cards and maps. There are also inventories of prices, facilities, and patient services. More than 400 private hospitals in Sydney are members of the Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association which has organised and financed the project and put it into service. It feels that “many people are admitted to public hospitals in emergencies because they are unable to find placement in private hospitals.” Each hospital pays a token fee for each patient admitted through the service. , No patient is admitted with- j out the necessary doctor’s. recommendation. i The scheme is also expected to be useful to relatives , looking for a nursing home, i perhaps for an elderly parent, who would be able to get a ;

place immediately. If successful the scheme will be extended throughout N.S.W. later this year. The association is thinking of introducing another service—a star-rating system for private hospitals and nursing homes. Actually one of the bestknown voices in the telephone’s recorded gallery has just retired. John Chance finished a stint as an announcer and newsreader with the Australian Broadcasting Commission not long after a 33-year career in radio. But people who were familiar with the Chance tones as they dealt with the disaster, catastrophe, comedy and tragedy that makes up the world’s news rarely realised that his is the infuriating voice that informs them “. . . this is a recording. You have dialled the wrong number. Please check the wanted number and dial again. If not successful dial . . .” At times his voice has annoyed John Chance himself, when he was having trouble getting the number he wanted. And the recordings he says, in an unavoidable pun, were made purely by chance. He just happened to be available when a voice was needed. A local radio station was responsible I found, for the

compilation of the news in brief—from Brisbane where they had a cyclone, through Sydney, Melbourne, Belfast, Moscow and the Grampian Hills in Victoria where apparently they have mountain lions, a legacy, it’s alleged, of American servicemen who set them loose there during the war. ■

And Sydney Stock Exchange puts out the various reports broken up into four sections on the latest state of the market, with four different numbers to call depending whether ydur interest is in mining, oil, industrials A to J or industrials K to Z. HEADY STUFF

It sounds a bit dull if you don’t have a share to your name. It turned out to be a pretty exciting affair in the mining and oil as a woman’s voice, touched with a faint urgency, rattled through from A to Z, gave a general run down on stocks traded, what rose, fell or remained steady.

I dialled on to discover that the temperature in Thredbo Alpine Village was 56 degrees Fahrenheit, that chair-lift prices for the snow • season were being issued and that I could get all the information I wanted right here in Sydney in Australia Square.

The time “at the third stroke” was 12.35 and 10 seconds. The weather was lousy —- not the Sydney Bureau of Meteorology’s expression exactly, but pretty accurate all the same —and not likely to improve much on the morrow. The cricket was washed out and one soccer team had beaten another soccer team. “Charley’s Aunt” was playing at the St James Playhouse and "Love Story” was still going. Twiggy and Topol were in town—on film. Seas were slight to moderate and showers were expected to reduce visibility. None of it sounded too promising. I tried “Bible Gems with Melody.” “Hello”, said a voice on the other end. “Do you ever worry about tomorrow . . .” I heard the daily Bible read-

ing—today, “Sons of God”; tomorrow, “The Peace of God;” in modern language versions.

And so to the lucky dip of “Dial a Disc.” It features one of those briskly-rugged, Australian, commercial radio and television voices that sound as if they should be American but aren’t. CHOICE

There were four numbers to pick from, each with a different pop tune. The only trouble was that until you dialled the number you didn’t know what you would get that week.

Melbourne introduced "Dial a Disc”, with Sydney second in launching the service, which has now. gone national. The company running it has plans to branch out with some other services, such as “Dial a Fairy Tale”, “Dial Your Stars”, “Dial a Garden Hint”, “Dial a Book” (a daily review of paperbacks) and “Dial a Language.” I doubt if it was exactly what Alexander Graham Bell had in mind when he sat down with his pencil and paper to work out a way that people miles apart could speak to each other. But in a society where, we’re told, people are withdrawing more and more into isolation, where cities house large numbers of the lonely, the sound of a human voice, even a recorded human voice, could probably be a comfort to some.

Certainly there are other numbers such as Lifeline and the various present-day missions that can be rung by callers so desperate with their problems of living, of drugs or alcohol, that the chance. But that’s another telephone is often their last story—and a sad one.