Press One to Continue Nightmare

Rupert Besley writes (mainly because he couldn’t get through on the PCO helpline):

I’m sure I’m not alone in my dislike of having other people’s words being put into my

Choose from one of the following options, then click on Next to continue:

– orifice

– earplug

– lexicon

– exhaust pipe

– rear end

– mouth

You know the kind of thing. Urgently needing to put right some wrong, you get trapped in the maze of a website, caught up in an endless loop of FAQs, FUQs (Frequently Unanswered Questions) and irrelevant options, none of them remotely applicable to your own particular circumstance.

In desperation you reach instead for the phone.

We are experiencing an unusually high level of calls and all our advisers are busy…cue cheering Funeral March music… Did you know that by logging on to our website you can find the answer to this and many other interesting questions?

35 mins and several bruises to the forehead later, it’s

Press 1 for Sales.

Yes, always they press one for sales. But listening to what you might have to say is the last thing they wish for. Instead, more options of zero relevance.

Customer Service? Disservice, more like. Contact Us, my

Select from one of the following:

– posterior

– kneecap

– eyebrow

– elbow

– elephant

– arse

I’m writing this from the cosy interior of a padded room, with spume-flecked fingers and froth still running down my chin. I am currently in a state of hostilities with my bank (which has robbed me of access to my online banking), BT (with whom my online account has now gone missing), the supplier of our solar panels (one small part of which is now not working as it should) and my doctor’s surgery and my pharmacy (at odds over my prescription). With each of these it is nigh on impossible to get through to the person who can put things right, thanks to the barrage of obstacles and blocking mechanisms put in one’s way.

BT (slogan, Helping You Communicate) are a case in point. My ongoing complaint, unresolved for more than 2 weeks, has now been escalated to Serious Stuff. I have been verified and validated by more voices in distant places than I care to list, have repeated my tale to each, but none has yet been able to find the account that we’ve had for years. Other telecom companies are available, all no doubt equally guilty of the same kind of practices. So, what has any of this got to do with cartoons? Not a lot, maybe, except that…

The digital age was meant to democratise, empowering individuals and giving them voice. Instead, the dark forces of commercialism and political interest, the rich and the powerful, are making use of digital media to skew information, manipulate minds, control thinking and stifle free expression. Cartoonists stand up to this. They (along with stand-up comics and other satirists) are crap detectors supreme. Cartooning in all its forms (gags, strips, caricature, leader page editorials) has the job of spotlighting (with brevity and humour) inconsistencies and deceit, hypocrisy, abuse and fraud. Cartoons fight back. Cartoons continue to be edged out of traditional forms of media, but they remain an essential part of any free Press and a necessary tool for highlighting things in need of correction. Cartoons get straight to the point.

We need them more than

– hedgehogs

– biscuits

– chainsaws

– custard

– sometimes

– ever.

All cartoons by © Rupert Besley

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