[September 04, 2006]

The chippie with a chip

(The Sunday Telegraph Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mobile phones have become the cigarettes of our day: small objects of hate. And just as requests for people not to smoke hardened in tone with the passing years, from moderately polite to stroppy and aggressive, so have those for people not to use mobiles. I came across one in a Cornish fish and chip the other day which read: "Switch off your mobile or we will batter and fry it.''

Bit harsh that, I thought. It was only a chip shop, after all. It wasn't as if the mobile signals would interfere with an MRI scanner or an altitude gauge. Then again, I don't know what it is like to hear for the 20th time in an hour someone using a mobile to check loudly with someone else waiting at home whether they want salt and vinegar.

For what irritates most, more even than the ring tones, is the volume at which some people talk on their mobiles. Why do they not feel self-conscious, these loud mobile users? I can only think that the same psychological phenomenon applies to them as to people who think that they become invisible in a car: those who think they cannot be seen arguing, eating, or picking their noses, the public and the private space having blurred in their imaginations.

Anyway, given the cigarette/pariah status mobiles enjoy, it seems astonishing that Ryanair has now announced that it is to permit the use of them on its flights. Imagine being stuck in a cramped, budget airline seat for a couple of hours next to someone shouting into a mobile. It will certainly make for a unique selling point. "Ryanair: we make a short flight feel like the longest journey of your life.''

I should, I suppose, steer clear of telecommunications as a subject. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my frustrations with BT and, since then, I seem to have become the nation's official BT counsellor, with dozens of victims writing to me with their tales of BT-related misery. Well, you have my sympathies, but please, for the love of God, no more letters about BT. I cannot help you. Not really. The best I can do is pass on a tip from a reader in the West Country. He drives around until he sees a BT engineer up a telegraph pole and then bribes him to visit his house. You didn't hear it from me.

There have been two perfect news stories in recent days. Like a perfect storm, a perfect news story is one in which a number of elements come together and take on their own momentum. The first was the one about the Scottish firemen who were obliged to take "diversity training'' after refusing to hand out leaflets at a gay pride march. When the Catholic Church weighed in, all the news boxes were ticked.

The second was when one of America's best known newsreaders, Kyra Phillips, forgot to switch off her microphone before she nipped off to the loo. While her station showed live footage of George Bush solemnly marking the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Ms Phillips could be heard swearing and ranting about unreliable men. She also managed to put the boot into her sister-in-law, condemning her as a control freak. Perfect.

It was a revelation to me that this is what women do. You never get men ranting in lavatories. They don't even gossip. The most communication you can expect while standing at the urinals is an embarrassed nod of acknowledgment. To strike up a conversation is bad form. And if your mobile happens to ring while you're in there, you think you've died and gone to hell.

Is it, I wonder, something to do with women having conversational time on their hands while touching up their make-up in front of lavatory mirrors? Or maybe it is to do with the long queues they have to endure.

It always strikes me as unfair, incidentally, that there aren't twice as many lavatories for women as for men at theatres. Only at theatres, mind. There would be no point having extra ones at, say, cricket grounds. I went to one with my father and two of my sons recently: the Oval, on Ball Tampering Sunday. As I figured our six-year-old wouldn't be equal to a full day of cricket, I persuaded my mother to swap places with him at lunchtime, my wife having said she would rather give birth without an epidural than sit through a cricket match.

As I had never been to a cricket ground with a woman before I had not appreciated that they provide exactly half the number of ladies' loos to men's. Quite right, too, I now realise. Women would only linger in them all day, ranting and gossiping and, generally, missing vital moments of cricket.

Copyright 2006 The Sunday Telegraph. Source : Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]

Discussions: