Desperate Voices

You know I think that you must be able to get hold of a satellite channel for thruppence and a pickled egg these days. Having an arse about on a mate's satellite rig I managed to get hold of a channel called "Gay Chat". The premise of this channel seems to be if you are terminally shy with a lousy phone manner and you would like to get some botty action you ring up at 25p a minute, leave a message and presumably people ring in and ask to talk to "Barry in Stoke who likes dressing up and is flexible".

I sat there transfixed for ages. A parade of the lost and lonely, you could hear the desperation in the voices, "I'm Frances," said a chap probably called Sidney putting on his best husky female voice, "please come and dress me up." Then there were the poor sods who straight after saying "I'm Mike", probably then said "I like horsecock" and they edited it so all you got was "I'm Mike" which I'm guessing isn't going to get him many responses and the funniest one had to be the guy who came on and in a tired, bored voice simply said "I'm Pete and I'm in Derby".

I've been to Derby. I sympathise.

Call after call emphasising how they were not a timewaster, that they were "genuine", that they "could accomodate, looking for a meet tonight" which I am assuming for "I am alone in my little flat and I need some human company, please don't fuck me over like so many tossers have done before"

And the cruellest irony came after a few minutes when I heard "I'll be in Barnstaple this Friday, January the 9th"... the fucking calls weren't even current! Somebody somewhere was rolling around in fivers culled from the 10p a minute he got from every desperate twat who rang his 0898 number to be dissapointed yet again. I guess if worst comes to worst he can always pay for the company.

A couple of channels down were about thirty similar channels for heterosexuals, all the same, all just as desperate.