Here is my new rinky-dink mobile, bought last Saturday under close instruction from the experts – my daughter and granddaughter. Not a big deal in most people’s lives, but seismic in mine.
Its predecessor was eight years old and would still be in use if it hadn’t tumbled to the floor in Diafani. Twenty minutes after being switched on it flags up “Insert SIM card”, even though the SIM card remains in place.
As far I am concerned, advances in mobile phone technology could well have featured in the Rubaiyat:
Like snow upon the desert’s empty face,
Lighting its little while is gone.
I make twenty calls a year, half to logis in France. In a truly busy year I receive one or two. I am of course a pay-as-I-goer and, in one of my life’s little tragedies, I regret keenly that I topped up before Diafani (but failed to use the phone once while there) and the present £43 credit is beyond retrieval.
For me, mobile phones allow me to pass on terse announcements about my whereabouts and my ETA. A vital function yet somehow uninvolving. The seemingly obligatory camera on the replacement is likely to remain unused. Two pluses: the new phone is smaller and lighter and the address book design is greatly improved.
Its predecessor was eight years old and would still be in use if it hadn’t tumbled to the floor in Diafani. Twenty minutes after being switched on it flags up “Insert SIM card”, even though the SIM card remains in place.
As far I am concerned, advances in mobile phone technology could well have featured in the Rubaiyat:
Like snow upon the desert’s empty face,
Lighting its little while is gone.
I make twenty calls a year, half to logis in France. In a truly busy year I receive one or two. I am of course a pay-as-I-goer and, in one of my life’s little tragedies, I regret keenly that I topped up before Diafani (but failed to use the phone once while there) and the present £43 credit is beyond retrieval.
For me, mobile phones allow me to pass on terse announcements about my whereabouts and my ETA. A vital function yet somehow uninvolving. The seemingly obligatory camera on the replacement is likely to remain unused. Two pluses: the new phone is smaller and lighter and the address book design is greatly improved.
Mobiles should excite me but don’t. The stupendous technology is somehow blurred by users’ fascination with ringtones and overheard semi-dialogues at blare level.
