I was reading this article about reasons why people call 999. I generally credit people with enough intelligence to realise that the number is for emergency calls. It seems, however, that people do call for the most ridiculous of reasons. The article mentions people who have called the number because they had a spider in their house. Other examples include a lady who wanted police to turn her water back on and people trying to order a taxi. Whilst, each of these people might have thought their problem was a real emergency, it makes me wonder whether these calls affected people in real need of help.