Morning:
8°c
Ken Stott may be starring in A View from the Bridge at the Duke of York's but it's what he can hear in the auditorium that's bothering him.
Apparently Stott was distracted by the sound of a mobile phone during a recent performance, so broke off to admonish the incontinently talkative playgoer thus: “Have you finished yet?”
Actually, the actor was being fairly restrained — certainly compared with the comedian Lee Hurst, who smashed a mobile phone when he suspected a member of the pub audience was using it to film his act. At the hearing on Monday the magistrates' chairman had “some sympathy” for Hurst and fined him a token 60 quid.
Personally, I have total sympathy for Hurst. I quite often feel like reducing Motorolas, Nokias and Samsungs to small piles of plastic and metal, such is the insensitivity displayed by their users.
We're now over a decade into the “mobile phone revolution”, and from where I'm sitting the Terror is still raging. I've lost count of the number of times I've found myself sitting on public transport, listening to someone on a hands-free mobile “talk themselves in”. On the 77 bus the other day, one such bellowed at her interlocutor, three times within a mile, “I'm just getting into Vauxhall now.”
When mobiles were still a novelty there was some satirical mileage made out of those pointless “Honey, I'm on the train” calls, but now everyone's more or less given up, and slid into the torrent of babble. Not me! I will fight on, for never before in the course of human history have so many said so much about so very little to so many others.
Nor do I exempt the more “sophisticated” users of iPhones and BlackBerries from censure; for while they begin, modestly enough, pointing out the utility of their costly hand-warmers — “I can deal with email when I'm out of the office” — examine them a little more closely and it soon becomes clear they simply love fiddling with those little buttons.
Because after all, what have mobiles done for us since the mid-Nineties? They are the quintessential symbol of the boom years, with their ability to pump up an asset bubble of chatter without adding anything to the common wealth. There's a grotesque irony in the way that all this fervid talk seems to have coincided with a society whose members feel more and more alienated from one another. The motto of the Mobile Age might well be: “Buy your child a mobile — then ignore their cries for help!”
But what about you, I hear you ask, don't you have a mobile? Indeed I do — and I use it, albeit sparingly. In fact, so sparingly do I use mine that I have the same handset that came with my contract in 2002. This year, for its seventh birthday, I decided to give it a party and invite all my friends to bring their mobiles along.
Sadly, however, there was no one who had a phone that was in the same age group, so my phone and I just sat there alone, listening to voice messages of regret.
Rafferty's lonely last resort
Apparently Gerry Rafferty is alive, “comparatively well”, and living on the south coast — there have been sightings in Bournemouth. A mini-panic ensued when it was reported that the man who penned and sang the massive 1978 hit Baker Street had absconded from St Thomas' Hospital six months ago — during treatment for liver problems — and hadn't been seen since.
The story has the ingredients of tragedy: folkie achieves stardom by singing about his busking life on the harsh streets of London, but while he gives up “the one-night stands”, he can't beat the booze.
I do hope Rafferty is all right: for my generation Baker Street was no mere track but a leitmotif — of London, of youth, of alienation. While the song may still bring him royalties, there's something peculiarly miserable in the notion that it's also an albatross around Rafferty's neck as he walks the windswept promenade of some last resort.
Withnail was a Notting Hillbilly
Sleddale Hall, the remote farm in Cumbria where Withnail & I spent their lost weekend, has been sold for £265,000 to a local resident. This, despite the interest in the location for the cult film shown by such celebs as Kate Moss. The new owner says, “I want to preserve its heritage, which has been greatly increased by the iconic film.”
A noble aspiration but it makes me wonder about Withnail & I's London locations, because above all else, Bruce Robinson's 1987 film was a defiantly metropolitan classic. If anything needs preserving, it's the iconic flat in Ansleigh Place, Notting Hill: it's here that Paul McGann's Marwood thinks he's seen a rat crawling in the washing-up, here also that Withnail downs the lighter fuel, and here too that Presuming Ed puts the finishing touches on that supremely iconic London artefact, his “Camberwell carrot”.
Reader views (9)
I hate answering the phone in public, I don't want to share my voice with the carriage. It always used to be perma-tanned insurance brokers who liked screaming down their blackberry's on the rush hour train.
I feel the same way about people who play their Ipods at fullblast. GRRRR.
- Sir Robert Walpole, East Anglia, 19/02/2009 21:50
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Makes me harken back to those halcyon days of only having to endure tshssshh - tsshhh rhythms from the Walkman....
- Darius Midwinter, London UK
Never thought I'd say it Darius, but I'm with you 100%!
- Geronimo, LONDON MIDDLESEX, 19/02/2009 02:35
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News flash--more people are having relationships with their mobile phone than with human beings.
- Mike, Denver, USA, 19/02/2009 02:07
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Rafferty wisely checked himself out of a grim very third world UK hospital (I've had the misfortune to have been "treated" there) and absconded to Europe where they actually have healthcare. For this he is missing in action?
- Thalia, london UK, 19/02/2009 01:42
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Brilliant. I gave in to owning one about 2 years ago but never take it in public places. My best story, many years ago when these really annoying toys came on the market was a ski trip. Travelling up, phone rings. A chap asked the owner about his nice new toy. Asked if he could look at it, then, "how much is one of these?"
$400, the reply. He then threw it out of the cable car, pulled out his wallet and gave the owner $400.
Everyone applauded!
- Ray Jarvis, marlborough USA, 18/02/2009 22:25
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and I've seen many bus drivers in Greece where i live having a fag whilst driving. Now which is worse? talking on the mobile or having a ciggie?!!!
- Cath, Reading, Gr, 18/02/2009 19:10
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Will,
You should try it in Leeds where the bus drivers routinely drive whilst texting or speaking on the mobile whilst driving double deckers even in the ice of last week. yes I mean you driver of 40a going into Carlisle Road, Pudsey at around 13:45, Thursday 12 Feb. But he's not alone and the managers don't really see it as a problem!
- Evan Mcgilvray, Leeds, 18/02/2009 13:20
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Excellent article. You have captured the essence of the irritation of mobile phones. I really thought that the novelty would have worn off by now in Trinidad but like it is getting worse.
- Helena Carr, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, 18/02/2009 13:04
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Agreed - mobile phones should be banned in public!
The phrase "Never before have so many words been conveyed with so little meaning" is the phrase that comes to mind!
Not only do we have to put up with the endless ring tone pollution, the loud vocal babble and the excruciatingly irritating adverts telling us "it’s good to talk", but there’s the danger on the roads with idiots texting whilst driving and the cost of these techno-addicts to be paid for as well.
When, in years to come it is proven that the phone causes brain cancer, litigation will no doubt ruin the worlds economy (if it still exists), the last phone calls made from a fat solicitors secretary informing the government it is being sued for not informing the public of this danger soon enough!
Makes me harken back to those halcyon days of only having to endure tshssshh - tsshhh rhythms from the Walkman....
- Darius Midwinter, London UK, 18/02/2009 11:19
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