A toy that answers back

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33728, 28 December 1974, Page 10

A toy that answers back

Sy

CHARLES FRASER)

Dial a well-known London wine-merchant after hours, and a comforting- voice will tell you: “If it is an emergency, perhaps this advice will help: red wine with the meat, white, with the fish It is a telephone answering machine, of course — the tape recording gadget which is fast becoming the most fashionable toy of the communications era. In America, it is estimated that 20 per cent of the population now has them. In Britain, where it costs about £l5O a year to hire an answering machine, the Post Office reports' that demand far outstrips supply. And few people, it seems, can bring themselves to say something simple like. “Sorry I am out, please leave your number and I’ll call back.”

With 18 seconds of recording time to play with, few answering machine owners can resist the temptation to put on their own telephone show. Post Office investigators find that some of us sing, recite, or even tell jokes. In America, the most popular message at the moment is: “For those of you who left a message last week which was not returned, we must apologise and point out that Rose Mary Woods inadvertently erased the message.”

Another favourite is: “Before you say anything, the cheque is in the post,” followed by: “Now you have a chance to win the prize for this week’s best message.’’

Dick Checkley, sales director of one of the biggest recording-machine manufacturers, says: “The more gimmicky you make your intial announcement, the less likely callers will be to leave a useful message.

“A man who sang a carol on his machine last Christmas missed out on a contract worth half a million to his firm. The caller thought the man was playing the fool, hung up. and the order was placed elsewhere.” Professional answering services — recorded on special loosely-wound tape which does not wear out — can now give you anything from a bedtime story to a recipe for a slap-up meal, or a cure for a hangover. A strip-club in West Berlin offers a novel service for its married customers. When they ring their wives to make an excuse about being kept late at the office, the sound of typing drifts into the conversation . . . Sometimes we dial a tele-

phone service and get more than we bargained for — as a medical student, Seth Jenkinson, found recently when he dialled the speaking clock from his London home . . . and found himself speaking to 18-year-old Nicki Barker. Soon more callers joined in the freak link-up and eventually the number reached 15. Someone suggested a meeting and 10 of the 15 turned up at Piccadilly Circus carrying copies of the “Financial Times” for identification. They had a few drinks at a pub and then went their separate ways. A Londoner, Derek Drury, certainly got more than he bargained for when he dialled the speaking clock, in a frantic hurry to know the time. “At the third stroke,” said the sedate voice. “Why don’t you get a . . . . . move on?” shouted Derek. He could not believe it when the clock answered him back. Unluckily for him, an operator was making a routine check of

the line and heard the choice language. Derek was put on probation for a year. telephone answering machine told me he had it taken out after three months “because so few people would record serious messages. “1 had a message to ring Mr C. Lion at a number which turned out to be London Zoo, and an invitation to lunch with ‘a few friends in the country.' I phoned the number to accept, and found myself speaking to the housekeeper at Windsor Castle. "Other people did impressions of Cary Grant or John Wayne. But some of the serious messages were even worse. "One solicitor’s clerk left a message which said: T am not sure whether I am speaking loud enough for you to hear me. If you can't, please ring me back and I will repeat the message'.” But the ultimate m answering machine madness occurred when a London firm’s electronic burglar alarm automatically rang Scotland Yard to report that a break-in was in progress. By some electronic quirk the call was diverted to another answering machine. The more the alarm declared that the place was being burgled the more doggedly the answering machine insisted that the matter would be attended to in the morning. A Scotland Yard spokesman said later: “To say there was a technical messup is to put it mildly. In future human operators will monitor robot alarm calls to make sure their informa-; tion reaches the right people.”