Parade knows telephone scams are as common as sunsets these days, but still thinks it’s a good idea to mention a recent one so readers are prepared.
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Parade got a phone call the other day from someone who was obviously in a large call centre who tried to tell Parade that he had been given a significant discount on the existing charges on his telephone plan.
The person saying all this seemed to be reading, without taking a breath, from a script, which was the first suspicious aspect.
The second suspicious aspect was that the telecommunications provider that was supposedly giving this deal was not the one that Parade is signed up with.
Parade hung up without letting the conversation get going, but is reasonably certain that personal details would have been sought before too long.
Hopefully other residents, if they get the same phone call, will be just as suspicious of the caller’s motives.
Warming to a different idea
IS there anything better than a Sunday roast lunch?
Maybe a Sunday roast lunch when it’s wet, cold and miserable outside.
That was Parade’s treat on Sunday: roast meat and vegetables as the clouds rolled across the sky and the Central Tablelands got its latest soaking.
Parade’s younger self would have been surprised to learn you could have a roast lunch when it’s cold, because they always seemed to be made in the height of summer when Parade was growing up.
A visit over Christmas to one of Parade’s two nans – one on the western plains, one on the humid coast – always seemed to involve a roast lunch on plates warmed in the oven, whether it was a day appropriate for it or not.
Both nans had small kitchens, so the temperature inside the kitchen once the cooking was done was only slightly cooler than the surface of the sun.
Still, no one complained – even as they ate with sweat gathering on the end of their nose and running down the back of their shirt, their faces beetrot-red and their mouths steaming.