Weathering a Spring storm

Phoning someone for a bit of a catch-up may seem like a thing of the past in these days of social media and other forms of communication. Having had a bit of a phone phobia when I was younger, I loved it when I discovered texting. And the joys of email – you could actually work out what you were going to say and get it down in some form of expression that made sense, instead of gabbling your way through scrambled thoughts that meant something when you thought of them but didn’t actually come out the way you intended when you picked up the handset. Just like writing a letter, in fact, but allegedly a wee bit quicker…

Still, these days, it seems to me that I have stepped back from my fear and loathing of actually having to speak to someone on the other end of a line and, especially where any kind of business or commercial transaction is concerned, I, like millions of others, usually end up absolutely desperate to talk to a human being.

This is not without its difficulties, of course, as most of us know when we’re trying to get anything done, from buying some highly necessary item to trying to pay a usually overdue (through no fault of our own) bill.

And the biggest villain of the piece? Holding music. Being a lover of the classical genre, I was intrigued to read this week that the Department of Work and Pensions, not an organisation known for the care and attention it pays to the likes, dislikes, wants and needs of its client base, has discarded the music with which it has been bending our collective ears since 2006 because, basically, it’s doing their callers’ heads in.

This, it surprised me to learn, was part of Spring from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, one of the most popular works in the canon and forever being recorded by new generations of enthusiastic violinists. The problem is, however, that they didn’t play the whole thing, not even all of that particular movement, let alone the full Monty of the other three. A 30-second loop was what assaulted the ears of probably already beleaguered callers, causing huge amounts of anxiety and frustration among the general phonetrapped population and particularly for people with hearing problems or suffering from autism.

The answer for the DWP might well have been, of course, just to play the whole of this generally rather enchanting piece. And the reason they used it in the first place was because, Signor Vivaldi being long dead, it was free and therefore “cost-effective”.

Now, I am delighted to be able to tell you that the well-sprung Spring has been replaced by a 20-minute mix of un-named sounds, which I suspect might be rather akin to listening to the interminable amounts of ersatz piano stuff passed off as music, composed by Ludovico Einaudi and his ilk. Either that or an updated techno mix of Holding Out For A Hero, Adele’s Hello or I Just Called To Say I Love You. Not to mention Hanging On The Telephone.

Me, I hark back not as far as Signor Vivaldi, to the glory days of Simon & Garfunkel. The Sound of Silence? It’s the only answer…

No call for that: Those ringing the DWP were treated to a 20-second segment of Spring on a loop.