company? It's nothing personal. Telco undoubtedly does its best on an hourly basis to connect us with countries like Kazakhstan, and more strength to them. But I recall a distant time when I was living in Devonshire, and would have been mighty happy to have been able to dial nearby Smith's.

My telephone had ceased operation one night. I didn't even know it had been ill, but there it was, cluttering up the living room, incapable of receiving or transmitting even the shortest of messages. It was inoperative. It was deceased. It was an ex-phone.

The very next morning, suffering telephonitis, that acute mix of loneliness and a sense of missing out on some big secret, I rang Telco from my office. My complaint was noted, action vaguely promised. Two weeks went by before I calmly re-enquired whether normal service might be resumed. An engineer was summoned to take my call.

"Mr Crunthorpe,'' he said, matter-of-factly, "lightning has struck your underground cables.'' In print, and in retrospect, that statement looks perfectly ridiculous.

Lightning, as any fool knows, dissipates when it hits the earth, and can no more strike underground than police officers may above it.

It took a week for me to work out I'd been had.

"What has in fact happened, Mr. Cranford,'' said the ingeniero di tutti ingenieri when I demanded to talk to him, "is that land crabs have eaten your connections. We have no recabling scheduled in your area for six months.'' Once bitten, twice enraged. All my gaskets blew out of my ears, a red flood descended across my eyes, and my normally limitless tolerance crumbled. Like any real man faced with intolerable behaviour - and I will not apologise for it - I fired off a letter to Action Line, the then consumer watchdog at the Mid-Ocean News.

The next day, in what must have been a slow news week, that fine journal decided to make of my tribulations a headline news story. The facts of the case were extracted from my letter, and a cameraman despatched to my workplace, a travel agency, to photograph my fine features. An ugly incident, however, sadly marked what might have been a breakthrough moment in the annals of the local media and the history of photography.

The then Deputy Governor had popped in to my office to collect some air tickets. He had got as far as "How are you, Mr. Cranberry?'' when a surly photographer burst in on us unannounced, saying "Press. I'm here to take your picture.'' The Deputy Governor stepped gladly forward.

"Not you,'' said the lensman. "Him.'' Me.

This was a Wednesday. On the Thursday evening, my telephone sprang miraculously and unexpectedly into life.

On the Friday morning, the Mid-Ocean News ran the now completely out-dated story on Page Two, headlined "Not so Jolly Roger's got crabs!'' or some such drivel. In his both-sides-now interview, the Managing Director of Telco told the Mid-Ocean News: "Mr. Crumfield's problems are related to our recabling project throughout southern Devonshire.

"There will be some inconvenience for our customers in that region, but I am pleased to report that Mr. Crompton's telephone link has now been reconnected.

"Service,'' he added, making me look like the worst kind of whinging ninny, "is the keynote.'' It was the one thing Telco had gotten right throughout the whole vile episode: serviceis the keynote. Or my name's not Roger Crombert.