More technology but it's getting more distant

We moved to Hereford ten years ago and this is our fourth phone system since then. Each has offered a - time for a cant techno-phrase! - step-function improvement over its predecessor. This one is part of a wi-fi trio and was acquired for two reasons. It stores thirty names and numbers and a small screen allows me to check the name of the person I'm dialling rather than rely on my vagrant memory and just the number.

More important I now have the luxury of a phone on my bedside table and can sleepily tell those who phone with a rising note of panic in their voice when it's still dark that, no, I am not Hereford Gas Services and why not dial 272329.

Parenthetically, the relationship with Hereford Gas Services has endured the full ten years. It reached its peak eight years ago when my shared-line fax (now surely as relevant as an illuminated manuscript) started cranking out an invoice for some gas parts one afternoon. I phoned HGS, not in anger - I enjoyed the illusion of a wider social life from these misdirected numbers - but to ask what they wanted me to do with the fax. After I'd explained things the telephonist wondered whether I might consider becoming one of their paid agents.

Back to the phones. They cost a mere £40 and have all the bells and whistles I need for the moment. What they don't provide are the extra memory cells whereby I can recall the procedures for activating these bells and whistles. I still haven't successfully transferred a call to one of the other phones.