Alexander Chancellor: Can one be addicted to making emergency calls?

The police have been complaining a lot lately about frivolous calls to the emergency services. All over the country people in their thousands are calling 999 for the weirdest or silliest reasons. In Gloucestershire one man called to say that his wife was a werewolf, and another that he was being poisoned by a satellite controlled by witches. In Scotland someone rang to complain about the service he had received at a hamburger joint; another to ask where he could buy some milk. The police have been publicising such incidents in the hope that we will stop wasting their time in this way, but it seems most unlikely that we will; for to call 999 is a spreading addiction. Not all the calls of which the police complain can be described as frivolous. Sometimes they refer to genuine emergencies, but ones that the police consider to have been avoidable. Why, they ask, should so many people need releasing from handcuffs? And why do so many get their hands stuck in letterboxes?

Given that it’s no fun ringing up a switchboard to face a series of questions about one’s name, address, postcode, purpose of call, etc.,