Two competing Filofaxes
A listener called to compare his previous year’s Filofax with Beccy’s new 2009 edition.
His contained Japan’s National Foundation Day, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and other dates missing from Beccy’s version. Beccy checked her own pages and tried to establish whether her new organiser was less comprehensive than the outdated one.
Scott quickly became tired of the detailed calendar comparison, while Beccy and the caller proposed swapping information and filling in one another’s omissions.
The man everybody calls by the wrong name
Scott’s friend Chris had been called “Michael” by his local newsagent for eight years.
Chris had never corrected him because too much time had passed. The situation was complicated because the newsagent’s wife knew his real name: Chris had attended school with their daughter.
He feared the day both husband and wife would be in the shop together and the mistake would finally be exposed.
Listeners reported similar experiences. One neighbour had called somebody Paul for years, while a customer repeatedly called an employee Steve until overhearing another person use his actual name.
The team concluded that after a certain amount of time, correcting somebody became more awkward than continuing to answer to the wrong name.
The computer-support prank
Chappers phoned Beccy at her desk while pretending to be “Steve from computer support”.
He told her that monitoring systems had detected inappropriate photographs on her work computer and said: “You’ve been infected by a Trojan worm.”
Beccy immediately explained that she had been away the previous week and suggested somebody else must have used her machine. She also admitted that a previous work assignment had required her to download material that caused another virus, although she insisted it had been legitimate.
Chappers said he did not want to create an official incident and offered to disinfect the hard drive before the matter went any further.
He instructed Beccy to step away from the computer, stand several feet back and place her hands on her head while he supposedly removed the infection.
Beccy later insisted she had not fully believed the call, but the recording showed her following enough of the instructions for Scott and Chappers to count the prank as successful.
The line “You’ve been infected by a Trojan worm” was subsequently offered as a downloadable phone alert.
COMMENTS