Ja’Red told me he had Thompson on Line One and I thought it was a prank call. But no. It really was Thompson. So I figured let’s hear what he has to say.

He says, “Mate, you’ve got it all wrong about me. I’m not a grumpy old man. And I’m not an Apple hater. I’m a huge Apple fanboy. I love your machines, and I love OS X. It’s fantastic. I’ve always loved Apple products. But on this iPhone thing, I’m sorry, mate, I just really think you’ve dentoned it on this one big-time.”

I was like, Dentoned?

He goes, “Yeah, oh sorry, it’s British slang. Means to bollix something up really badly. Like, Oh, man, they really pulled a denton on that Olympics logo, eh? Or, Bush and Blair really dentoned that war in Iraq, didn’t they? Also it can be used as a slang term for penis. You see British slang can be really subtle and complicated.”

Well, I thanked Bill for his educational conversation, and told him I respectfully disagreed with his assessment of the iPhone. And right after we hung up I called Katie Cotton and told her to never, ever let anyone at Apple talk to Bill Thompson or anyone else from the BBC.