Bah Humbug! It's December, again - 6 more days to go

ET, phone home ... and falling off your bike.

Only, for the past ten days, my mother had no landline. She had a mobile, but as she never switches it on, it was not a viable option - although I did try calling it.

In spite of living in a world of ultra-connectivity, short of sending a telegram, or hopping on a plane, I found my mother incommunicado due to a loose connection at the public junction box.

I felt like Blondie, in the phone box, the one across the hall. And my sigh was of Pink Floyd proportions as I listened to the continuous ringing.

Maybe it is time to go back to the age of the telephone operator, when you picked up the phone, and a voice asked you what number you wanted. The operator then connected the cord from your line into the destination number line.

Unless you were on a shared party line - which was interesting in a snoopy sort of way, as you could listen in to what other people were talking about - a quasi social media.

In 1958, the Queen visited a new telephone exchange that offered Subscriber Trunk Dialing (STD) - and offered a new type of phone - "available in seven colours":

So where do bicycles come into telephones and telephone exchanges - well, they don't, not really, unless of course you count the chap who cycled round to deliver a telegram? But, they do, if you are ET, and then, of course, you need a posse of cycles peddling up to the moon so you can reach your spaceship.

You do need to be careful, though, if you are cycling in mid-air, not to fall off your bike. Which is sort of what happened to my sister on her way to work last Friday. She fell off her bike. Although, I don't think she was taking ET home.

Interesting point, though, ET crashed first time. So maybe there is some lesson to be learnt here? 

It is not the first time my sister has fallen off a bicycle, the last time she achieved this feat, she was a little girl, and she broke her arm. This time, it was a little more serious, she fractured her pelvis. Just in time for Christmas. 

So she will not be climbing down chimneys for a while, me thinks ...

And, so, the tenuous link of telephones with bicycles.

DOWN THE CHIMNEY ©

We heard a rumble from above,

And Santa gave a shove,

But all that fell was one black boot

And a shopping bag of fruit.

‘Oh, fruit,’ said Mum, ‘how good,

I forgot the Christmas pud.’

‘What?’ groaned Dad, ‘no brandy sauce?

But, you’ve made mince pies, of course?’