Just the thing for getting rid of those boring guests who you know will stay all night once they get started – a US company called Message Phone Inc, location unknown, has an ingenious payphone that copes with busy numbers: it allows you to record your message, and then dials your number until its free – limit, two hours – and delivers your message, so you slip the phone off the hook, disappear mid-evening and call yourself, and when you can stand them no longer, you carelessly elbow the phone back on the hook, and a few moments later, it rings and you can pick it up and say I’m terribly sorry but…