The Directory is essentially a large scale distributed database, which is 
maintained by administrators within participating organisations.  This 
distribution of the Directory means that it requires an infrastructure of
highly reliable networks and Directory servers.  If components become
unavailable, the service may fail in a variety of ways.

A message which you may see from time to time is:

  This operation is taking some time.
  Control-C, if you wish to abandon the operation.

If the networks and/or computers running the Directory are heavily loaded,
it may take some time for queries to be resolved.  If a query has still not
been answered after 30 seconds, the above message will be displayed.  If you 
are content to wait further, simply do nothing - the query will continue.
If you do not wish to wait any longer, type control-C as instructed and that
query will be abandoned.

Other messages should be self-explanatory: if they are not, consult the 
PARADISE helpdesk - email <helpdesk@paradise.ulcc.ac.uk> - and we will do 
our best to clarify the messages.