Pub quiz and marketing calls

[zotz]

original_aj came round last night and we went over to the Hoose to try the pub quiz and the Skullsplitter. Success was mixed.

As he arrived the phone went and I leapt for it in case it was Ed. It wasn't. It was a recorded marketing call - something about a holiday in Florida, I think - so I did what I generally do in such cases. I put it down and left it talking to nobody for a while in the hope that the marketers pay for the call by the microsecond. After finding and putting my boots and jacket on, I checked the phone and it was still going. In fact, I realised that it had looped. I wasn't quite sure whether to put it down, and said so to AJ. The evil grin on his face persuaded me - I left it talking and we went to the pub.

When we arrived, we found that the Skullsplitter was still lurking unconnected, so we had Thrappledouser instead. It was an entirely acceptable alternative. The Whisky Angels invited us to join their (quite large) team and we went on to beat everybody except - crucially - the bar staff.

Back at the house, we were saddened to find that sometime in the several hours I'd been out, the telemarketing machine had given up and rung off. Still, at least I wasn't left with the same decision to make this morning, or even this evening. Would I eventually have ended up getting a second phone line just because I couldn't bear to stop wasting their resources?

It's possible. A lucky escape, I think.

Addendum: More irrelevance - Arcosanti. Yes, I did use to play a lot of SimCity, actually.

Comments

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Those calls drive me nuts because they keep going even when you hang up on them. This means you can't use the phone until they've finished. I have no idea how they do this...

[zotz]

Standard behaviour for phones. The call ends when the person who placed the call hangs up, or after the receiving caller's been hung up for (IIRC) fifteen minutes.

I think recorded calls like that have to be made from outside the country. British regs don't allow them.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

*nods* They don't pay a blind bit to the TPS, either - we've been on that for ages and we still get them.

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

It's very simple. A (standard analogue) phone call is not terminated until the caller clears down; this has the side-effect that the called party can hang up one phone and pick up another and not affect the call. (This probably doesn't apply to funky business phone systems or ISDN lines.) This is why the standard advice to recipients of unwanted calls is to put the handset on the table rather than hang up.

Now, automated calling systems darn well should recognise that they have been hung up on and clear down, and indeed there's something in the telemarketers' code of conduct (IIRC) to the effect that callers must recognise the right of the called party to terminate the call at any time, but these bloody Florida recorded message spammers are outside of UK jurisdiction, let alone any UK code of conduct...

[zotz]

The question is whetehr they're on a metered deal or a flat-rate one. Still, if one of their machines is talking to your empty hallway, at least it can't be dialling anyone else.

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

hell knows how many lines these scam artists have, its expensive to setup but as long as you get say 10% success rate you'll easily pay for the system.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that MI6 could manage a few plausible-deniability bombings.

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

Pretty sure the holiday calls are from the States, as I've held on and talked to them, as has Hein.

[skx.livejournal.com]

After doing much the same now I listen to the calls, and there's a bit at the end where you press a number to talk to a real person.

I've done that each time I've had the patience and been in a bad news, kinda feel sorry for the people I've shouted at. But it feels so good ...

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Don't you get charged for the call if you do that?

[skx.livejournal.com]

You cannot be charged money by pressing numbers on the keypad from a call that another person initiated.

This seems to come up a lot in scare-stories, and email myths about people being landed huge bills.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Ah, good. Maybe I'll try that next time then.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Thrappledouser is an excellent name for a beer :)

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Oh and arcologies - wacko, but a nice idea in principle..

[zotz]

You could probably argue that polar bases already have a touch of the arco about them, but whether anybody can make them tempting for saner environments remains to be seen. There were a couple of articles a few years back suggesting that something a bit like (but not referred to as) arcologies could be built in London to help with the housing shortage. Needless to say nothing's come of it.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'd live in an arcology. OTOH I am a fanboy.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding? Market them as the ultimate in cutting-edge, minimalist modern living spaces and the Habitat-shoppers'll snap them up.

Then, of course, we can detonate the carefully inbuilt explosive charges and wipe out the irritating designer-living yuppies in one fell swoop.

[shaunotd.livejournal.com]

Shame about the lack of skullsplitter though. I tried it at the last Cambridge Beer Festival I went to ('98?) and found it very pleasant indeed.

[zotz]

Indeed. It may be on tap now. If not, it'll be there in the next few days. It was already in the cellar. I'll be able to revisit Skullsplitter the next time I'm there, I'm sure.