Fair Warning

Britain's telecoms watchdog has fastened its soft, sloppy gums around the ankles of a company for adhering to the letter and not the spirit of the rules. Ofcom recently ordered companies to inform customers about price increases in pounds, pence and advance; O2 has done just that, hiking monthly bills by an extra forty per cent from next April and tactfully refraining from any overt sniggering when breaking the news to the victims. Ofcom expressed disappointment that a profit-oriented company should do everything it can get away with in the name of profit; the extent to which other profit-oriented companies will be chastened by this uncompromising whine of rebuke remains as yet unclear.