This is a true story: in the late 1970s an American businessman who turned in for the night at the Turkish capital’s Grand Ankara Hotel was disturbed by a man shouting in the adjacent room. When he rang reception to inquire about the cause of the bedlam he was told that his neighbour was calling Istanbul. “Why doesn’t he use the telephone?” asked the American.
In those days the phone lines operated by the state-owned PTT were so bad that some businessmen flew to Athens to talk to headquarters in Europe or the US.
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