"(phone rings)" "Hiro Candici phoned his nephew, Serge Gallagher, and asked him for the phone number of Joseph Morpetho, the manager of a local football club." "Serge couldn't remember it and left the phone off the hook while he stepped outside to ask Gary Modler who looked after a barrow on the corner of Fiddler Street." "Modler was married to Morpetho's ex-wife, who used to be a telephonist before she went deaf after being knocked down by a barrow, a fact that hadn't affected her memory." "(ringing tone)" "Hirous Canditi got Jerry Modler to phone Louis, his wife's cousin, to ask him if he knew Gary Sutler's phone number so that he could give him a piece of his mind." "Jerry pretended to have no change, so he said he'd ring later." "Hirous told him to piss off and he ran into the bar, demanding to use the phone." "Harry Diego, the barman, pointed to the phone at the back of the serving hatch and asked Hirous to buy him a drink." "Hirous claimed that he could make ten calls for the price of a beer." "(dialling)" "(ringing tone)" "Harry Contentino owned ten barrows in Fiddler Street and held another three off Gregory Square." "He paid his barrow boys badly and expected them to keep him in small change for his phone calls." "He was always on the phone." "Louis, his wife's brother, ran the pub in Gregory Square and had banned Harry from using the phone behind the bar because he never paid for it." "Harry broke a bottle and scratched the paintwork and vowed he would never drink in the bar again." "The same evening he was back to phone Zelda." "Louis allowed him to use the phone provided he bought every person in the public bar a drink." "There were five people in the bar." "Harry said he could phone New York for the price of five beers." "(engaged tone)" "Harrim Constanti insulted the operator every time he picked up the receiver." "He never said please, always called the operator a deaf cow and belched every time she asked him to repeat a number." "(Italian)" "(engaged tone)" "(French)" "Hiro Contenti got to calling his wife Zelda after a telephone operator who used to identify herself by saying, "It's Melba,"" "every time he rang his mother for money." "It was a weak link, but Hiro thought it was amusing." "What also made Hiro laugh was that this telephone operator never seemed to need a natural break." "Hiro used to call her a deaf cow, yet he loved his wife." "It didn't make much sense to the woman who came to clean the phone, who thought Tender is the Night the greatest movie she'd ever seen." "(phone beeps)" "(beeps become louder)" "Harold Constance lived on the phone." "He ate through it, he had a hotline to the supermarket and he organised his sex life on it." "The phone in his office was always covered in crumbs and was sweaty from being held under his armpit while he masturbated." "(phone being dialled)" "(approaching police siren)" "Hirohito Condottieri was the youngest child of an Italian businessman," "Paulo Condottieri, who lived for nine years under house arrest in Taiwan." "Paulo's only pleasure had been to use the phone." "He'd phoned people like other people blinked their eyelids." "It was a reflex action." "Arrested for forgery, he wasn't jailed because his financial contribution to the state through his use of the telephone was immense." "The telephone company, at their own expense, had installed a phone in practically every room in Paulo's house." "Paulo had died at the age of 83 over a telephone arrangement he had with a nightclub manager whose girls contrived to give Paulo excitement over the phone." "The pleasure had apparently been reciprocal, for Paulo's favourite girl had borne a son some nine months after Paulo's death." "And it was this child, Hirohito Condottieri, who'd given his father's house to the nation as a communications museum." "(ringing tone)" "Hirt Constantino spoke of the telephone with exceptional reverence." "Thanks to it, he'd escaped from Europe, met his wife and set up his own business." "He hoped to order the rest of his life as successfully through the telephone." "He taught his children to use it when they were young and educated his Estonian grandmother to treat it with admiration and affection." "When the telephone company had difficult relations with its employees," "Hirt went sick, complained of being deaf and shouted at his children to have more respect." "When the phone company employees went on strike in a harsh winter that blew down telephone wires all over the country," "Hirt took to his bedroom." "His grandmother tried to interest him in letter-writing and his wife bought him a two-way radio, but Hirt's allegiance to the phone was unshaken." "He had a photograph of William Bell above his bed and had his telephone directories bound in black Moroccan leather with metal corner pieces and a silver clasp." "This is the forecast for Greater London until dusk Thursday, issued 4pm Wednesday." "Temperatures will fall to 3°C with frost in the suburbs after midnight." "Thursday will be mostly dry with some sunny periods and temperatures will rise to about 10°C." "Winds will be northerly, moderate to force four... (voice drowned by rising wind)" "Henry Clementi's ex-wife, Zelda Maroni, lived in a small village not too far outside Olaf-St Simeon." "The only telephone available among 27 people was in the general store at the end of the main street." "Henry continued to correspond with his wife after their divorce and he wrote to her on the first Saturday in every month." "One summer, there was a postal strike." "Feeling it necessary to continue to communicate with Zelda," "Henry phoned the store and left a message there for Zelda to phone him in Zürich at noon on the first Monday in each month." "For the length of the postal strike, Zelda phoned Henry from the store, but when the strike ended and the letter postal service resumed," "Zelda insisted on returning to corresponding by letter." "Henry was reluctant to do that and suggested he might pay for a phone to be fitted in Zelda's house." "To do this, a cable had to be laid from Olaf-St Simeon and would cost a lot, probably as much as it would cost Zelda to move and buy a house in Olaf-St Simeon itself." "With no hesitation, Henry offered to provide the money for Zelda to move and she agreed." "But she double-crossed him, for, with the money he gave her, she bought out the general store, closed down the postal service and destroyed the telephone." "Harry Contense was a telephone operator who got his job much against his wife's wishes." "Zelda Contense thought a telephone operator ought to be female." "So, for that matter, did the telephone service, but they employed Harry because they were seriously understaffed." "The other women working on the exchange had mixed reactions." "Some were amused when the management had to give him a separate cloakroom." "But later, on seeing Harry enjoying so much space privately, whilst they had to share a cloakroom, they soon demanded better conditions." "Some of the women mothered Harry and five of them, in their different ways, began to make passes at him." "When Harry worked nights, he had a bed put up in his spacious private cloakroom and on Tuesdays and Fridays, he entertained lady telephonists there." "His wife found out at the same time that the more militant telephonists were organising a demonstration for better conditions and jealousy amongst Harry's suitors was impairing the efficiency of the exchange." "Zelda phoned the manager and demanded that Harry be sacked." "The management consulted the union to see if Harry could be transferred." "Harry realised the problems he was causing and to find a way to resolve the difficulties, he went deaf and resigned." "(cries of seagulls)" "At the third stroke, it will be 2:29 and 50 seconds." "At the third stroke, it will be 2:30 precisely." "Harry Contento phoned his wife Zelda from the quayside so that she could hear the sea." "Harry propped the telephone kiosk door open with a piece of driftwood." "Flora Gallagher, who taught Zelda to swim, was always around when Zelda picked up the phone." "She said she could always tell from Zelda's face whether the tide was in or not." "Harry's brother, Philip, wondered why Harry didn't fit up a tape recorder instead of having to travel 20-odd miles to the sea each day." "But Horace Muldoney said that Harry had told him that he liked travelling and enjoyed making phone calls from beside the sea." "He liked the way the phone box was being eroded by salt spray." "He could imagine the way the sea, if given time, would corrode the phone itself and how, eventually, the corrosion would pass along the line to Zelda's ear." "(coin inserted into phone)" "Hello?" "He's getting him whisky or something." "They said he drinks." "He goes in the pub." "Well, it's up to them, isn't it?" "... 369334." "... the Belgian franc, 72. 85, the Danish krone, 11.28..." "Jessica?" "Bugger!" "Howard Contentin was a student of hygiene." "His particular scruple in the summer months was the telephone." "He believed the use of the public telephone, being in intimate contact with the mouth, spread infection and he conducted a private campaign." "Equipped with disinfectant, he spent his evenings in telephone booths, scrubbing the mouthpiece of every telephone he could find." "A summons for loitering only seemed to encourage him." "He was eventually arrested for causing corrosive burning to the face of a 43-year-old public health inspector who was phoning his wife, Zelda." "(dialling)" "Henry Constantin phoned his wife Zelda every morning from his office." "He always announced himself the same way," ""Hello, darling, this is your mid-morning call."" "After his mother died," "Henry Constantin began to lose control of his wits." "Being a creature of ingrained habits, he never failed to call his wife, but his sense of timing began to go astray." "His calls to his wife grew later and later in the day, until she received his," ""Hello, darling, this is your mid-morning call,"" "late in the afternoon." "Zelda was distressed at this well-meaning but poorly executed demonstration of affection." "So she took to phoning him around about half past ten every morning to remind him that it was time he should ring her." "At the third stroke, it will be 10:38 precisely." "(three beeps)" "At the third stroke, it will be 10:38 and ten seconds." "(three beeps)" "At the third stroke it will..." "HC spent a long time composing his letters." "He rewrote them many times, especially those to his mother and to his ex-wife, Z." "When he'd finished them to his satisfaction, he phoned them through." "He fixed the phone to a music stand, measured a step and a half back on the floor and made a chalk mark." "Then he came forward, dialled the number and waited till he heard the receiver being picked up at the other end." "Then he stepped back cleared his throat noisily and began to read," ""Dear Mother", or "Dear Z", or whatever it might be," ""Dear Sir", "Dear Construction Company", or "Dear Insurance Broker"." "He felt he had developed telephoning to a fine art." "Over the years, HC refined his style, concentrated on form until the content of his calls atrophied and he reduced his conversations to "Dear Phone", and continued with a list of names read from the telephone directory." "The only people who did listen to him with rapt amazement were his mother and the very rare wrong numbers HC sometimes dialled." "(phone rings)"