Composer of the Year

by Nix Nada

The phone rang only once before it was answered.

"Hello?"

"Good evening," said the caller. "This is Claude Greenhill calling from ScherzoTech Communications. Am I speaking to Mr Robert Goodwin?"

"Yes."

"Hello Mr Goodwin," said Greenhill. "Our records show that you are a registered user of our Composer range and I wonder if I might take a moment of your time to talk you through our most recent product selection."

"Go on."

"Excellent," said Greenhill. "We're very excited about our current products. You can use them as a home phone, mobile, video phone, web browser, camera... It's amazing to think, at one time the Composer could only make and receive home phone calls."

"That sounds interesting."

Greenhill smiled. "Would you like to hear a little of the history of the Composer range?" he asked. "It's actually one of my favourite subjects."

"Yes."

"Well," said Greenhill, "the range wasn't always as fully featured and stable as it is today. I'm sure you'll have heard from the media reports at the time that the company got off to a rather unsteady start. Take, for example, our first model, the Haydn: it was a solid machine, but we underestimated how popular it would prove to be. The network at the time just couldn't cope under the stress of such a storm of usage."

"And the Wagner!" said Greenhill. "That had a very odd malfunction. Answer it, hang up, unplug it from the wall - it didn't matter what you did, the ring went on for hours."

"Then there was the Mendelssohn," he went on, "that was a strange one. It just about refused to connect with any concurrent versions of the hardware and started spontaneously giving free calls to older models of the Composer, such as the Bach or the Schubert."

"That sounds interesting. Go on."

"Well, the company tried to modernise after that," said Greenhill, with a hint of restrained disapproval. "The Glass. Recursive messaging compression, they called it. Took ten minutes to send a five word text message."

Greenhill cleared his throat. "Oh dear, I got rather carried away there and I'm not making much of a sales pitch, am I? Rest assured, all of the bugs which plagued the earlier versions of the hardware have been completely fixed. For instance, the previous model - the Handel - was one of the most stable communication devices on the market, using technology bought in from Germany, and I can assure you that the reputation of the current model, the Purcell, is whiter than white."

"Go on."

Greenhill brightened and launched into his spiel. "The Purcell is one of the most advanced telephone systems available today. Unlimited conference calling, free text messages, mobile and home phone capabilities, compatibility with home CCTV networks for security and peace of mind on the move - and the most innovative feature to date: a secondary line which acts as a sort of buffer for unwanted calls. You can still use your telephone, while an artificial intelligence algorithm uses a simple set of stock phrases to keep any unsolicited callers busy so that they waste their own time and not yours."

"That sounds interesting."

"Yes it certainly... wait a moment," said Greenhill.

"Go on."

He paused. "How does all of this sound to you?" he asked, suspiciously.

"That sounds interesting."

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" he exclaimed. "I'm talking to the Purcell, aren't I? That's the eighth time today!"

There was a click and the line went dead.

Robert Goodwin looked at the receiver in his hand. "Cheaper than buying a Purcell," he said to himself as he replaced the handset.