When we’re left hanging on the telephone | Brief letters

Bad customer service | Binary answer to the ultimate question | MPs' mobiles | Crossword gold

Anna Tims' feature on appalling customer service (17 April) omits to mention two of the most common, disingenuous and irritating recorded responses to telephone inquiries, which are Please hold, your call is very important to us" (it clearly isn't) and Your call will be answered shortly" (invariably it won't be). As for the on-hold music, some honesty could be introduced by playing Blondie's Hanging on the Telephone.
Adrian Brodkin
London

Your Easter editorial (17 April) mentioned Douglas Adams' 42 as the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. In a way it is, because expressed in binary notation 42 is 101010, an index of a repeating yes-no" fluctuation surely at the root of much cosmology and fundamentalphysics.
Brian Smith
Berlin, Germany