You will note that this morning’s piece on Afghanistan was posted at 4am. That is because I was awoken by what sounded like somebody rattling the back door. There was however nothing to be seen.
Then at 10.22pm this evening, Nadira received a phone call on her mobile from a witheld number. A heavily accented man asked “if her husband was the writer”. She asked who it was, and he gave his name as Osman. She noticed that another man was whispering, telling the first man what to reply.
“Osman” then started asking repeatedly “Is your husband at home?” Nadira said that I did not take phone calls from people at that time of night, and suggested that “Osman” should email. “Osman” said that I was going to write something for him, and again started asking if I was at home. Nadira told him to email, and he then started swearing and repeating “Your husband owes us £30,000”.
This is all very disconcerting. I don’t know any “Osman”, and to the best of my knowledge neither I not any organisation with which I am connected has any outstanding debts to anybody. Why phone so late of night, who was “Osman” and who was the man whispering his instructions? Most disconcerting of all, why phone Nadira and where did he get her number?
If I did not have a family I would laugh this off, but the approach to Nadira and the questioning of whether I am at home is alarming. Probably that is the object of the exercise.
@Ishmael
I’m not sure if you’re serious, but I would bet the driver was pissed.
Whoooooooooaaaaaaaa!
‘The idiot with no name’ and I started flaming on this thread long before you (June) and you (Clark) even contributed to it. Kindly bug off and find your own flaming thread to flame before we flaming well flame you!
Nanny Nanny Booby!
My prose, my intellect, my wit….aw fcuk I just squished a bug on my monitor.
What was I saying?
”The idiot with no name’ and I started flaming on this thread long before you (June) and you (Clark) even contributed to it.’
Redders:If you go back you will find it was you who first attacked me, because I put a post on saying Thatcher had caused all this. Which contradicted your post. You are not very good at getting facts right.
I knew a jamaican shop owner in my youth who had problems with burglars in a rough part of manchester and as a precaution fitted a metal grill to the door and windows at rear of the shop connected to the mains supply. Only people who shouldn’t have been there would come into contact with it. I suggested this might be illegal, i was quite innocent at the time, well so is breaking into my shop he said and if i find one here in the yard dead one morning i will just throw him over the wall. I don’t think he had any further problems with break ins after that. This was before the days of CCTV and fancy alarm systems.
As for phantom phone calls, i think we all get them from call centres and the like with number withheld. For the moment just don’t answer such calls and let them go to answer machine. Simples. If you do feel the need to answer it speak in a foreign language. Any will do and if you don’t know one then just make it up.
Craig is regularly censoring comments that don’t reflect his views.
Why is this?
What are your views on censorship?
One thing that works pretty well is restricting a mobile’s incoming alert to known numbers. Anyone new will have to leave a message. (I do this routinely because I have to work odd hours – during off-hours, the mobile only allows calls which I’ve told it are essential).
Mobile numbers are spread around like email addresses for spamming purposes these days, and Mr. Murray’s mobile has (unfortunately) appeared on this blog. That of his wife has not, so some digging has occurred.
At home, may I suggest that a smiting-stick is not far from hand. A particularly useful place for such a thing is behind the door frame (on the opening side), to the side of the bed, and behind and to the right of where one usually works. Might I also suggest getting used to the feel and balance of the stick, while static and in motion.
But as a student of Aikido, I probably would say that.
Glenn, you sound like a cosmically-centred being. Is your house full of sticks? I once found a two-pronged stick in a neighbour’s house. It was made of ash, she said, to ward off evil spirits.
I suspect Arsalan checks under the bed each night
A good answer may be water-bed. Whatever happened to those? In the 1970s, they were the ultimate symbol of suburban decadence.
This incident bears all the hallmarks of a Mossad operation… From my observations (“Munich” was on tv the other night) their “heavies” are usually a bit scattered and prone to depression – hence their heavy reliance on support staff. Did the caller sound anything like Eric Bana?
But if you hear from “Osman” again, can you ask him to stop using my passport? 😉
Suhayl: No, it’s not full of sticks 🙂 They are made of Japanese oak, though, not ash. Mine are there to ward off evil spirits too, in their own way.
June 11, 2010 1:00 PM
http://tinyurl.com/2wqg8jt
When those who are supposed to uphold the law, break the law, then there is no law.