Boredom, impatience and hatred, when combined, are always ingredients for a good time, and now Britain’s Ashley Gibbins is the king of those good times. All he wanted was a subscription to a broadband Internet connection. Instead, Gibbins sat on hold with NTL, Britain’s largest cable provider, for over an hour. While waiting, he began pressing buttons on the phone, eventually stumbling into a huge hole in the company’s phone security system that allowed him to change their on-hold messages.

Gibbins got to work and before long, callers were greeted with the message, “Hello. You are through to NTL customer service. We don’t give a fuck about you, basically, and we are not going to handle any of your complaints. Just fuck off and leave us alone. Get a life.”

On discovering the tampering, NTL had Gibbins arrested. He was taken to court for leaving a grossly offensive message, but the magistrates decided “fuck” wasn’t quit up to “grossly offensive” levels and released him.

» Scott Saxon