Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: DoctorBeaver on 09/08/2008 08:48:53
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from The Times Online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4488353.ece)
It was every Japanese housewife's worst nightmare: alone in the house, scared, confused and unable to staunch a baffling flow of thick syrupy liquid. Gripped by fear, she lunged for the telephone and alerted the police.
“Help me!” the woman pleaded down the emergency service hotline, “my ice-cream is melting.”
A year or two ago, the call might have been dismissed as a schoolboy prank or demented ramblings but for the police in Tochigi prefecture in eastern Japan, the panic-stricken cry for help was part of something much bigger — a national trend known as youchi-ka, or the creeping “infantilisation” of Japan.
Japanese adults, say police across the country, are calling hyakutouban — the equivalent of the British 999 — for increasingly trivial and ridiculous domestic reasons. In Kyoto, it is calculated that more than a quarter of emergency calls to the police involve no crime or danger and often represent the mildest everyday inconveniences.
The new flood of calls has included numerous complaints by men that their girlfriends have left them and others that vending machines have failed to return the correct change. Some demand immediate police responses to irregularities with train timetables or simply express general qualms: one person dialled 110 to declare a fear of snakes and seek official advice.
According to Eiki Katayama, the chief of the Tochigi prefectural police “People used to feel a sense of shame in calling the police for these trifles but people now feel they have the right to do so as taxpayers.”
Like the person who cycled to a railway station and telephoned the police to complain that her bottom hurt, or another who called to say that the television would not switch on. Police in one rural prefecture fielded a panicky emergency call reporting the presence of a cowpat in the street, while another demanded an immediate police response to the discovery of an oddly coloured Chinese dumpling at a grocery shop.
The daftest calls to the emergency police lines
I can’t seem to cook my rice
My back trouble doesn’t seem to be improving
I need a good karaoke place
My fork seems to be bent
I think there may be something on my head
I can’t work out how to use my mobile
There’s no toilet paper in this public lavatory
Is today rubbish day?
I think my daughter needs to take a day off
I think the people in Utsunomiya are very cold-hearted
There’s a nest of sparrows that has broken
You have to feed my pets while I’m away on holiday
I can’t get a monkey off my car
I need you to give me a morning wake-up call tomorrow
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Stephen
Now. Why do thousands of Americans call the emergency services on Christmas day?...
Sean
Is it because they eat so much that their fingers chub up, and they get all--
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the words "THEY'VE EATEN TOO MUCH".]
Stephen
Oh! That is not the reason. What happens on Christmas day that's particular to that day?
Alan
Presents in the morning . . .
Stephen
Presents...
Sean
Yeah, so you phone up the emergency service just to see if it's* worked [*present of mobile phone].
Stephen
Because you can't call anybody else up because you haven't got a network yet.
All phones in America, whether they've got a SIM card in them or not, have to, by law, be able to call 911, the emergency services.
Jo
Does that annoy the emergency services?
Stephen
I would imagine it drives them batty! Yeah!
http://www.freewebs.com/qitranscripts/502.htm
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(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbestsmileys.com%2Fclapping%2F2.gif&hash=f3ac90d0f104dd89dbe260c598e013a8)
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Control Room: “South Wales Police, what’s your emergency?”
Caller: “It’s not really. I just need to inform you that across the mountain there’s a bright, stationary object.”
Control room: “Right.”
Caller: “If you’ve got a couple of minutes perhaps you could find out what it is? It’s been there at least half an hour and it’s still there.”
Control: “It’s been there for half an hour. Right. Is it actually on the mountain or in the sky?”
Caller: “It’s in the air.”
Control: “I will send someone up there now to check it out.”
The mystery was soon solved, as the exchange between control and an officer sent to the scene makes clear.
Control: “Alpha Zulu 20, this object in the sky, did anyone have a look at it?”
Officer: “Yes, it’s the moon.”
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It's enough to make you Dai laughing [:D]
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http://whatthecrap.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/no-sauce-on-subway-sandwich-911-emergency/
Jacksonville [Florida] police say Reginald Peterson needs to learn that 911 is not the appropriate place to complain that Subway left the sauce off a spicy Italian sandwich.Police said the 42-year-old man dialed 911 twice last week so he could have his sub made correctly. The second call was to complain that officers weren’t arriving fast enough.
Subway workers told police Peterson became belligerent and yelled when they were fixing his order. They locked him out of the store after he left to call police.
When officers arrived, they tried to calm Peterson and explain the proper use of 911. Those efforts failed, and he was arrested on a charge of making false 911 calls.
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can’t get a monkey off my car
Actually--I see the rational in this instance.
This could also be added to the list of things Americans will shoot.
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can’t get a monkey off my car
Actually--I see the rational in this instance.
This could also be added to the list of things Americans will shoot.
Good point.
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As a former 000 operator I can attest to the the stupidity of people calling for non emergency reasons.
It's sad when we have so many people around us and no-one to talk to.
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As a former 000 operator I can attest to the the stupidity of people calling for non emergency reasons.
It's sad when we have so many people around us and no-one to talk to.
Oh the pathos of it all
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No one is talking to you, Bev.
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Oh shut up JamBib
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At least I didn't act like a drama queen, Bev.
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JamBib, that is a hoot.
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These strange UK accents and spelling again. Can't understand of what these "people" are speaking.
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Can't understand of what these "people" are speaking.
What good English that is.
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At least I didn't act like a drama queen, Bev.
No, just an OLD queen!
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What has Her Maj. got to do with this thread?
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Her Majesty lives in a beaver lodge. Tragic, that. Philip is rather upset but as the dutiful peer he is - loyal to a fault - he has set the game-keepers to watching the pond and lodge.
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Prince Philip lives in the Queens Beaver lodge.
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THAT'S devotion!
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Prince Charles was caught on tape wishing he could live in Camilas Beaver lodge too. It must run in the family.
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Yes, it is an in-bread (har, har) lot and the Beaver "claims" a link to this lot. You know, Mount Fidget Castle, etc. So this is the link to the royals and the Beaver.
Tisk, tisk.
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Leave Her Majesty's beaver out of this! [:(!]
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So, that is what you are calling yourself these days, huh?
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No. I just think it's wrong of you to demean our monarch thus. Kindly stick to maligning your sub-normal presidents in future.
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I do not buy the denial that you are not her majesty's "toy" nor the pathetic attempt to change the subject.
You are the beaver in question.
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The widespread development of genetically modified crops risks leading to the worst environmental "disaster" ever,
Prince Charles said in an interview published Wednesday.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hGONewZHpuNRZW8T7VYFiELxrGCQ
Given Charlie's family tree, he knows all about genetic disasters.
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I do not buy the denial
You do not buy anything. You're too tight-fisted!
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The royal muff!
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I do not buy the denial
You do not buy anything. You're too tight-fisted!
The royal muff!
And the "royal" miff, quoted first.
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Prince Charles was caught on tape wishing he could live in Camilas Beaver lodge too. It must run in the family.
The Italians call him 'Tamponcino'. [:0]
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With his ears?
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With his ears?
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fawcg.com%2FAllen%2FRandomImages%2FBeav-II.jpg&hash=8028942e48ef53a33c39a035f70843b7)
Or hers
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That is just nasty.
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Gosh the Queen has aged.