Mon 8 November 2004 - Telegrams gone
Just wondering, now that telegrams have been phased out, what does the Queen send you now when you turn 100? An SMS? Something along the lines of:
Congrats 2u Re 100 b'day. Rgds E2R Σ:-)
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November 8th, 2004 at 9:20am
Actually telegrams are still used. It’s just that they arrive in your mail box in a normal envelope (but yellow). If you dont pay your gas/water/electricity bills for a while they actually send you a telegram reminding you to pay up.
November 8th, 2004 at 9:25am
I ’specially liked the smiley face with the crown.
November 8th, 2004 at 3:28pm
They tend also to be used for diplomatic purposes more than the common people like you and me
November 8th, 2004 at 4:48pm
That’s very clever. I reckon the Queen would use that crowned smiley face for all her SMS’s. Can you picture her with a phone in her hand, busily texting her grandsons??
Hilarious!
November 8th, 2004 at 9:49pm
Very funny Daniel.
November 8th, 2004 at 10:04pm
Stuart, I didn’t know that, but it sounds like they’ve just hooked into the postal network. Even as late as the 1970s, telegrams would be delivered super-fast and could be used to reach people who didn’t have telephones. In fact in the late 70s when my parents split up, my dad didn’t have a phone. My mum would send a telegram if she needed him to come over for something urgently! I’ll have to ask her how long it took to deliver, but it was certainly same-day.
Had to hunt around a bit to find a character that looked like a crown. In the end I got the Greek letter Sigma… I’m not even sure if you can do this on a mobile phone!
November 9th, 2004 at 2:36am
My N0k1a has a € or a & which might pass for a crown……
November 9th, 2004 at 10:25am
Using the euro symbol for the Queen of England? That wouldn’t be very PC. My phone’s got one that looks like a circle with four dots on each corner - ¤ - (no idea what it is and I’m not sure if the symbol I inserted will come through) that would sort of work. Maybe not as well as the sigma, but I don’t have that one on my phone.
- OLS
November 16th, 2004 at 7:54am
Got me all worried for a minute that I might not have sigma on my phone. I checked and I have sigma, theta, lamda, xi, pi, phi, psi and omega. Whew, what a relief. I’m a bit disappointed I don’t have ‘Å¡’ though, it would make spelling my ex-girlfriend’s nickname a lot easier. At least if I have to send someone calculus or ever marry a princess I’ll be right.