Budapest people love the recent changes for the better. They are about to forget that once upon a time there was a scarcity of phone lines. Waiting for installation literally lasted years, sometimes a dozen or more. In the early eighties an MP in the all-Communist Parliament made an ironic suggestion that telephone applications should be made inheritableÖ

Budapesters fancy the big blue coin-operated telephones imported from South Africa , but almost everyone prefers to use telephone cards.

The card-operated phones are imported from France , and they 'speak' in Hungarian and English, alternately. Phone cards are sold at newsagents all over the town. The proper way to ask for one is 'KÉrek egy telefonkártyát' (Keeh-rek edy telefon-kaahr-tyaaht). Then comes the inevitable question about the kind. There are two kinds, one of fewer units and the more substantial one. Find your way out of this by writing the number on a piece of paper.

Faxes are to be found everywhere in businesses, but you have to queue up for them in post offices. And if you want to receive a fax, you have to browse among dozens of other faxes for strangers with the same initials as you. Or you can go to the elegant business centre of Kempinski Hotel, downtown.

The first floor of the Inner City Telephone Centre (Belvárosi Telefonközpont) is a place where you can personally browse in all the printed directories of the world, and can sit down in reasonably comfortable booths. (V. Petofi Sándor utca 17-19.)

Various services are provided by the telephone company called MATÁV: they include alarm calls, jokes and bedtime stories - in Hungarian, of course. The only service for which you don't need the local dialect is an 'A' for tuning: 317-1822.