"One of my friends has a machine that cuts in after 12 or 15 rings...."

Would that be me, Sandra? Actually it was Messagebank, and you can set the number of rings in seconds, so it was a bit experimental. I made it really long to start with, because I was sick of running for the phone from outside, only to hear someone hanging up just as I got there. At that stage it was 13. In some ways it was good, because the telemarketers and so on gave up in disgust and didn't leave messages, but some of the people I wanted to talk to who hadn't been warned were hanging up too, so I finally settled on 6 or 7, and that seems to work.

And yes, it does start ringing from the sender's end about one ring before it rings from the receiver's end. I noticed that when I was using my mobile phone to try out how many rings I had set.

And this might be a little bit of thread drift, but it is about phones at least - there are some people (not you Sandra) who, even though they know both my home and mobile numbers, insist on ringing me ONLY on my mobile, and don't even try my number at home. I usually only have my mobile on when I'm out (and these days when I'm online), to save the battery, and so I don't know they have rung until the next time I turn it on. Then I have to pay to retrieve the messages and ring them back, when all along I was sitting at home where they could have rung me. I've told them too, but they keep doing it anyway.

That's my grumble for the day, anyway.

Jenny (with not much to grumble about, really)