The great Ludwig von Mises: The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but ...

As much as some will deny it, a lot of us get our kicks from watching the suffering of other people. Call it schadenfreude when it involves our enemies, call it rubbernecking when we go past a road accident, call them gorehounds when they enjoy horror films or searching for the real equivalent online, call it what you will, most of us either enjoy or at the least, are fascinated and intrigued by i...

Moving call centres overseas does not lead to improved customer service levels, a survey conducted by Surveylab has found. In this recent study, 66% of participants reckoned their call to a UK company ended up overseas but only 7% reported their call was trouble-free. The vast majority experienced problems:

In the weeks following my Call for Action on Gender Equality (see here  and here), I'm happy to see that a variety of people have responded favourably.  Cassandra made an interesting comment to my second post:  “Margot, I believe your initiative is not without value, but your call should not only be addressed to women

I've had a brilliant idea for solving the frustration of phoning call centres to sort out extremely mundane details of life. Here it is: I set up a call centre in India. You need to query your gas bill, or phone your mobile phone company, or complain about a delayed train, or order a takeaway. Instead of phoning yourself, you instead pay my company a small fee to make the call for you. You supply ...

I've had a brilliant idea for solving the frustration of phoning call centres to sort out extremely mundane details of life. Here it is: I set up a call centre in India. You need to query your gas bill, or phone your mobile phone company, or complain about a delayed train, or order a takeaway. Instead of phoning yourself, you instead pay my company a small fee to make the call for you. You su...

20.00, Thursday 1st May. Boris and I call in at the 'Back Boris' call centre in London, where everyone was working really hard, calling people to ask them to vote Conservative in the Mayoral Election.

Can't say that I am in the least surprised. "Perhaps it is the stress of dealing with cranky members of the public. Or maybe they are just bunking off to escape the sheer boredom of sitting in front of a computer screen, day in, day out. But whatever the reason, it emerged yesterday that people who work in customer services, including call centre operators, are more likely to call in sick tha...

Baroness Ashton to call on CND experience in EU role. Phone call for Mr. Putin, phone call for Mr. Putin. Some bird on the line asking about whether there’s any more of that Moscow gold?

Indian Russell Brand-alike makes prank call, almost starts major war. A hoax telephone call almost sparked another war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan at the height of last month's terror attacks on Mumbai, officials and Western diplomats on both sides...