I’ve always been of the opinion that being late is the sincerest form of rudeness. I feel something the same about answering emails. If someone takes the trouble to write then I feel this deep catholic guilt to reply with some alacrity. Sometimes, though, the tousle between good and evil within me can result in a few months passing between inbox and outbox.
Exacerbation insomuch as many correspondents to TPAS Towers seem to imagine I’m some sage old telegraph engineer with hands tarred with creosote splinters and the answer to every technical/positional problem there ever was with a telegraph pole. And I confess I’m finding it hard to raise enthusiasm to enquiries about boundary disputes, pigeon poo, and other such positional conundra. I’m loathe to make it any clearer on the website header that I’m simply an excitable enthusiast from Wales who just likes the shape of telegraph poles and that we are in no way affiliated to Openreach technical division. Oh the shame of sending out a stock reply like some House of Commons MP replying to a moaning constituent. But emails about broken phones, wires hanging down or engineers trampling your roses whilst servicing a telephone pole in your garden may now be met with this or similar reply:
Dear enquirer, Many thanks for your email. Alas, I’m probably not the best person to ask. Ultimately, you see, we are just air-heads who appreciate the finer aesthetic qualities of telegraph poles. The lines they make as they dance their way o’er an undulating landscape into perspective infinity. And fluffy stuff like that. Rules, regulations, maxima and minima, rights and wrongs are things that happen to other people I’m afraid. You can contact Openreach via an online form at www.openreach.com. They don’t seem to have a phone number.
If you want to get my attention however, send me lovely pictures of telegraph poles that I can properly appreciate and share joyfully with our fellow connoisseurs. Pictures like this one from Robert Watson from the calm locked streets of Dorking RH4.
