When Downtime heard that the Royal Mail had shot down ernestmarples.com for allegedly infringing its rights to post codes, we did some checking. Wikipedia, that font of all wisdom, had quite an extensive referenced and footnoted entry on Mr Marples, a former Postmaster General and the man who hired Beeching to trim the rail network.
But when Downtime tried to get on the actual website, our trusty moral guardian Websense banned entry. Reason? Sex. Well, perhaps it was because it read on Wikipedia that McMillan had named Marples as one of two cabinet members tied up in the Profumo scandal, so to speak...
But no doubt Marples will be best remembered for introducing subscriber trunk dialling to what became BT, putting thousands of switchboard ladies out of work, and perhaps some into the oldest profession.
But when Downtime tried to get on the actual website, our trusty moral guardian Websense banned entry. Reason? Sex. Well, perhaps it was because it read on Wikipedia that McMillan had named Marples as one of two cabinet members tied up in the Profumo scandal, so to speak...
But no doubt Marples will be best remembered for introducing subscriber trunk dialling to what became BT, putting thousands of switchboard ladies out of work, and perhaps some into the oldest profession.
Comments (1)
... or perhaps because STD might confuse Subscriber Trunk Dialling with the sort of disease that made my 14 year old turn bright red when asked for his STD number - he was applying for a bank account at the time; a truly great family moment :)
Posted by peter lawson | November 2, 2009 4:08 PM
Posted on November 2, 2009 16:08