A Short Summary of the Essay "On Not Answering the Telephone" by William Plomer
On Not Answering the Telephone by William Plomer About the Author: William Plomer was a British novelist, poet and a literary editor. He was born in South Africa, completed his education in England and lived in Japan for a short while. So, he described himself as Anglo-African-Asian. He expressed his anger against racial discrimination in his collection of short stories titled ‘I Speak of Africa’. Plomer was known for his deep sense of humour which he showed both in his writings and in his talks on the radio. Summary of the Essay: The present essay is a talk given by William Plomer on BBC. In the talk, he discusses the discovery of the telephone in a comic way. He thinks that sometimes gadgets like telephone are more of a burden than a boon. He makes some real observations about mechanical devices and their users. The writer shares his experience with mechanical devices like the telephone, the typewriter and the car. The writer does not use a tele...