There is no doubt about it - children certainly broaden your horizons. I mean, do you know where the Solomon Islands are? In case you are interested, they are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, near Indonesia and sort of north of New Zealand. I gleaned all this when I got my phone bill recently and discovered that over £700 worth of telephone calls had been made to the Solomon Islands. I can talk about it calmly now. But I have ranted, raved and ruminated for the last month - firstly against the Culprit, who should have known better; secondly against the tabloids, who carry the ads and make an awful lot of money from them; and then - well, I don't exactly know who. Who is in charge of the technology that allows a child to select his "sexual perversion" by simply dialling a telephone number?
The staff of Telecom are gentle and sympathetic. After sending the horrendous bill, they operate a sort of counselling service for parents on the verge of dementia. The kind man in Telecom told me that my bill was "only in the ha'penny place - we have people in here regularly whose bills are in the four figures".
He suggested we put a bar on all international calls and premium numbers. This would cost an initial £16 and then £4 on each bill.
"I thought there was legislation to monitor sexlines and that callers were given a pin number to access the lines," I blubbered. But if the sex-line has an international number, the legislation does not apply. Even though Telecom staff attempt to block as many sex lines as possible, they admit they are losing the battle. As soon as they bar one number, the line is set up under another number and an ad is put into the tabloid newspapers.
The Culprit owned up when the itemised bill cornered him. It comes with dates, times and duration of each call. But he was as shocked and as dismayed as I was: he did not realise he was ringing abroad. I bought a couple of tabloids and read the ads. They are worded in such a way as to certainly whet the appetite of a young adolescent. Who wouldn't wonder about "Hot 'n Horny"? - and "The Partyline" sounds really exciting. The bill also contained some premium numbers. They were for competitions. "Did you win anything?" I asked hopefully.
