I AM thinking of making a video and sending it to whoever runs Dublin Tourism. Copy to the Minister. The video would show a scene of a woman (me) standing at one of metal canopy public telephones they have in Dublin now. She has been standing there for some time, actually. A fairly large queue of young with newspapers with ads for flats marked up "them are breathing down her neck waiting for her to finish, as a matter of fact.
She has had the misfortune to be asked by foreign tourist to find out what time the Casino Marino opens in the morning. The casino has no other role in life but to be a tourism attraction and it is in Dublin. Therefore, although the woman (me) is well informed enough to know that the casino probably comes under the Office of Works, it seems reasonable well, it did at time to ask Dublin Tourism what time casino opens.
The woman at the phone appears to have developed a touch of the convulsive disease called St Vitus Dance during her time at the phone. The reason oh, bring back Michael Smurfit she is doing the phoning for the tourist in the first place is that Telecom has made it impossible for the tourist to do it herself.
There are no phone books in Dublin phone boxes, and in this canopy phone box there is no instruction card or any other smallest hint as to how to ring directory inquiries to ask for the phone number of Dublin Tourism. It is a Paddy phone canopy.
Anyway, it wouldn't have done the tourist any good to get through to directory inquiries. Ten minutes earlier directory inquiries had given a number which turned out to be the number of the administration section of Dublin Tourism. Administration had gone home. (This was at about 5.30 in the evening.) A recorded voice just gave the administration's office hours, which interestingly enough include a lunch hour.
It's ages since I heard of a lunch hour in the service sector. However, I tried directory inquiries again. "I have no other number for Dublin Tourism," a snippy young man said. "They're all management numbers. Try them in the morning." "There must be a number for the tourists they're all there to manage," I said. "There isn't," he said.
I went into the off licence and used pull to get a look at their phone book "See page 89," the Dublin Tourism entry said. Page 89 is called "Premium Services." This is where they have the expensive numbers where you can phone Jacqui, and Dial a Date, and your horoscope, and Patricia Redlich's Advice, and Mystic Meg, and live racing commentaries.
AND here here is where the hapless tourist, who has paid us the compliment of coming to Ireland, can find the information number of Dublin Tourism. How much would I need to go back to the phone canopy with? At the bottom of the page Telecom informs the reader that to call the 1550 Dublin Tourism number will cost 58p per minute but "Calls from public pay phones may cost more."
I will return to this disgracefully misleading statement. For the moment, let me stick to my narrative. I asked the man in the off licence for £5 in change. I was being ultra careful. I mean, how long can it possibly take to ask someone at Dublin Tourism what time a famous Dublin tourist attraction opens in the morning?
I queued again for the public phone. When I got to it, I tidied my pile of money on the ledge and confidently dialled the number. And this is where the St Vitus Dance bit started. Because I needed to feed money in continuously literally every couple of seconds while at the same time hopping around pressing various buttons on the dial of the phone, there being no one at the other end to ask a question of but instead this recording TIME WASTING and therefore VERY EXPENSIVE and therefore exactly like a sex line PROFITABLE for the phone, in this case Dublin Tourism.
I couldn't really grasp the lengthy rubric I paid through the nose to listen to but it was all about welcome to blah blah for a list of options press blah blah for sights and tours press 1 for sports press 2 for upcoming events press 3 or if you want to buy a guide or something credit card here is a phone number (do they think people have four hands one for holding the receiver, one for putting in the money, one for pressing their buttons, and one for writing things down?)
"You have chosen major sporting events you have chosen sights thank you for choosing press 1 for walks press 2 for popular attractions press 3 for thank you for choosing popular attractions press 1 for something or other opening times in general here is the information about the Viking adventure."
I cannot tell you how annoying this is, designed as it is to suit Dublin Tourism's categorisation what a tourist wants to know, not the tourist's. There's no chance of appeal there isn't a button you can press to get through to a human being to ask your human question. Either the tape they made answers your query, or you can lump it.
I don't know how long their tape goes on. I can't afford to find out. But I did notice, when in my panic trying to manage the money and the receiver and a pen and to ignore the queue for the phone behind me, I hit a wrong sequence of numbers, that after a lengthy passage of being told that there are no rugby matches on in August, I was told about a soccer match, and it turned out to have taken place on August 10th.
THE tape was informing the public of this on August 15th. This is exactly what sex lines do. They make you spend more time on the phone by starting off with a leisurely description of what they are wearing. Mean, huh? There's no problem, after all, about changing a tape daily.
The fact is that Dublin Tourism has made it impossible for anyone to phone them to ask a question. Remember that coy phrase in the phone book. "Calls from public phone boxes may cost more"? There is no "may" about it they do cost more.
They cost nearly 100 per cent more. They cost, to be precise, £1.01 per minute, as opposed to 58p a minute from a private phone. And that's what we're offering to our visitors. Bord Failte, too. They get the tourists here, and then they refer them, in the phone book, to the same 1550 number.
It turns out that the Casino in Marino is itself in the phone book. And it is a truly wonderful place and run as Irish tourism on the ground usually is by the most charming and helpful people. Indeed, I suggest that Doreen and Susan and John, with their feel for the actual tourist, be taken on as consultants to the industry.
Them, and the young lady at Dublin Tourism's credit card accommodation and ticket reservations number, who very kindly gave me this information when I went home and after a night's sleep began my quest again, this time on a private phone. Just as well she stretched a point and helped me if she had referred me to the 1550 number, I'd have been taken away by the men in white coats.