Morning:
10°c
APOLOGIES if you haven't heard from me but I've just spent a week in the No Phone Zone. It's my own fault, of course: I tried to upgrade my life. As everyone knows, that just makes things far worse. While I waited for my old mobile to die (tick tock, tick tock), and everything to transfer across to my new iPhone, I was left stranded.
Which, for a craven phone junkie, is desperate. My whole life is on there. I've been known to sit stroking the messages in my inbox. Sometimes when I can't sleep I run through the home numbers of celebrities. I'd never call, of course. But it's like a talisman.
The worst thing about the No Phone Zone is the absence of incoming calls and texts. I'd love to be one of those people who say airily: "How nice to be out of reach" or "Oh, heavens, I never bother to carry my mobile." The trouble is I always want to be contacted. Even in my sleep.
As soon as I upgraded my account at Carphone Warehouse I began to get jittery. They promised the iPhone would activate in around eight hours (four days later I was still sweating).
Then, when I got home, I realised my new state-of-the-art laptop was incompatible. "Whoops, we sold you the wrong model. Jump in a cab," advised Apple. Which is how I came to spend Saturday night in the Regent Street store until 10pm fighting to keep a live phone line. It was like a James Bond film except without the sex and foreign travel. My whole identity was crumbling - against the clock. Soon I wouldn't exist.
The weekend was a write-off. London doesn't work without a phone. Dates, galleries, friends all fell away. Then my home internet went down. Cue lots of shouting at BT India. Liz Hurley really is my new heroine. Apparently she gets up at 6am every morning just to shout at her service providers.
By Tuesday I was a shell. Why bother going out? No one was expecting me.
Yesterday I finally crossed the Rubicon. My iPhone sprang to life; goodbye to the battered Nokia. But in theory only - now I can't let go of my old handset. We had such good times together.
I know it's the future, but my shiny new iPhone seems horrid and petulant. There's no instruction manual. I can barely text. Half my contacts have dropped off. And what the hell is visual voicemail?
Every time it squawks, I freeze. A week ago I was happy - now I'm lugging around the technological equivalent of an adult baby in my handbag.
