I've got a cell phone. A simple one. In theory I can make calls, receive calls and if I've got plenty of time to spare, send a text message on it! I sometimes receive text messages, but more often than not I press a wrong button and delete them before I read them! Actually I often do the same with incoming calls! Either I cancel them, or spend so long trying to remember how to accept them that the time runs out and it stops ringing.

Apparently it takes voice messages too. At least that is the impression I get from a symbol which appears on the screen sometimes. How to retrieve them though well, that's a mystery I've yet to solve.

Having said all that, if it does ring, squawk, squeak or shake, it is a fairly rare event anyway. Most people who know me are fully aware that they would be wasting their time trying to get me to respond to a call on my mobile. Everyone I know contacts me via my home phone computer. They know they will get a reply that way!

I'm going into grumpy old man mode now. Teenagers! Why oh why do they seem to think it's necessary to have one permanently in their hand or glued to their ear? One local council is so concerned about the danger kids are putting themselves into by walking along the street staring down and texting, that they are considering wrapping protective padding around lampposts and other pavement mounted signs!

I have the dubious honour of working with teenagers in my kitchen at work. I don't approve of these wretched phones being used whilst they are working. Oh, they tell me, what if there is an emergency and someone needs to get hold of me? Simple! We have a land-line contact you on that! I employed a chef once who became so annoyed with one young lady whose phone kept ringing, that he coated it in fish batter and dropped in the deep fryer!

to rip the infernal devise out of their hand and lob it out of the window? They speak so loudly! And you can't even have a decent eavesdrop, because you only hear one side of the conversation!

Actually it is quite funny when you hear people lying about where they really are. I'm stuck in the office dear' they say as the down their second glass of beer and pinch a young lady's bum! I know of one pub in London where there's a special booth in which to use your phone, and it's fitted with a sound system which plays background noises of typewriters, traffic and trains!

No, I'll sick the old type of phone, preferably one with a proper dial and a curly piece of cable. You know where you are with those!

Learn more about this author, Keith Hillman.
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