DLF FFS

Celebrity endorsement, one presumes Sachin has good teeth, you can also get a Tendulkar Toothbrush. I'm looking out for the Botham bogbrush.

These two were new purchases on Monday. At first I was most excited about Sachin toothpaste but I have grown to love the phone, even if it doesn't work. The camera seems ok (better than blackberry), and the phone does loads of stuff but requires fudgy fingers on the screen and mine are over fudgy. I had to sign photocopies of every page of my passport to get the SIM, just had to splash to get the handset. So it was supposed to be activated last night.

Nope.

First thing this a.m. the complaining letter went into our HR dept, who are facilitating this thing for me. Turn it off and on again came the instruction. Done with no result, next email fired off. Forget all about it and go out on an errand at lunchtime (which will feature in a future blip), a bloke sitting on a motorbike hanging around outside the office hails me. I give him my best perplexed look, and rather than try and interpret what ever he may have said I make a guess.

Inspirational - he is from the phone company hanging around hoping to meet disgruntled customers - he even produces a photocopy of my passport photo. So he plays around with the phone, puts the SIM in his phone, I ask him if it worked - he says yes and then phones someone on his SIM. I kid you not, 30 seconds later a bloke comes round the corner on a motorbike and pulls up with a form. How long have you worked in India - 2 months I exaggerate, although the actual answer to the question on the sheet is that I've worked for the company for 3 1/2 years. It looks like a credit rating sheet and non of the other questions can be answered positively. Given that phone calls here are exceptionally cheap, and my deal for a load of calls a month costs about 2 pounds fifty and I've paid a twenty five quid advance this seems a little over the top. It'll be fixed in two hours they say

IT WASN'T
AND STILL ISN'T
BUT THE PHONE IS STILL NICE

And The Fall just told me to Putta Block (on the words)