There’s an estate agent in Hannover shaping up to follow Julius Reuter into the history books: he is attempting to extend his business across the border into Magdeburg, but, reports the BBC, he finds the East German no apology for a telephone system so frustrating that he has resorted to higher technology that is proving much more reliable – carrier pigeons; as well as getting Reuter his start, pigeons have a continuing link with high technology, because in the early 1980s, a Lockheed Corp lab across the mountains from Silicon Valley found that the most effective way of sending drawings back to base was to microfilm them and send them by pigeon – and if anyone questions whether the Hannover pigeon post will last long enough to make the history books (East Germany is promised the rudiments of a moden phone system in October), who has not heard of the Pony Express? That operated for just 10 months.
