Phonee

Some unusual phone uses

Like the old phone in the opening chapter telephones with umbilical cords are fast disappearing. (Witness the number of second hand ones available for little more than a pound or so in charity shops and at car boot sales) Most people ourselves included, who still have the traditional “land lines” as well as numerous mobiles now have one of those “walk around the house phones”, those where the handset and the main body of the contraption don’t have the twisted umbilical cable joining them together and thus enable you to move out of the way when you talk on the phone rather than obscuring Granddad’s view of the telly. These handsets are “connected” to the base by radio signals, which vary in range but usually work when the bit you talk into is up to about sixty metres from its base unit.. For those who still think in good old imperial measurement, that’s about sixty-six yards or equivalent to three rods, poles and perches, or about  five sixteenths of a furlong. 

These are very versatile gadgets their mobile functionality being extremely useful both inside and outside the house.  I find either when you need to escape to somewhere private to have your conversation (which is why I have just invested in a hands free kit for the “land line” which is now fitted to the handlebars of the lawnmower) or when the call of nature becomes more pressing than the telephone call. After a bit of practice one can quite happily continue the conversation whilst divesting oneself one handed of ones trousers in the loo leaving the caller totally oblivious of ones plight, position, choice of décor, loo roll colour or, most importantly, angle of dangle. Probably the most useful feature of these phones in this situation is the hands free facility.

I understand that we have entered the digital age and that anything “analogue”, the old technology is now considered totally primitive. Now don’t ask me what the difference is since technically I really couldn’t tell you. That digital gadgets are more sensitive I concur since with my new digital hearing aid I can detect the opening bars of soap opera  theme tunes that much earlier than with my old analogue one and thus grab the TV remote, hit the “Mute” button or change channels that much more quickly.

Some embarrassment I understand can be created when using the latest digital phones since their increased sensitivity in comparison to the old analogue ones can quite easily pick up the sound of flushing water, the incessant hammering on the door of the next desperate would be incumbent or even that of a hastily repositioned fly zip.

I have it on good authority although not from personal experience that such sorties to the loo should not be practiced when using the new video type phones for reasons, which may, or in the case of my reliable informant actually DID, in his case, actually become obvious.

Satellite communications have of course begat the era of mobile phones. The first communications satellite experiment was the USA SCORE (Satellite Communication Orbiting Relay Equipment) launched in December 1958. In orbit its greatest distance from the Earth was nine hundred and twenty six miles. It received messages and recorded them on magnetic tape before re-transmitting them. SCORE operated for thirteen days until its batteries ran down. It was destroyed on re-entry to the earth’s atmosphere in January 1959.

Incredible numbers of communications satellites have been launched in the last few decades, their size, weight and thus capacity being mirrored by the increasing power and thus capability of their launch vehicles, examples being the Delta rocket of the 1970’s, the Titan and the Ariane of the 1980’s to the now familiar, albeit discontinued, space shuttle.

2002 saw the launch of the Astra 1K, weighing some five and a quarter metric tonnes, six point six metres high with a span of thirty-seven metres, which, again, for those of you that have never wished to embrace the metric measurement system either, translates to nearly 22 feet and a little over 121 feet respectively.

In April 1972 a man, whilst walking along the pavements in New York City suddenly stopped and took out a strange looking “brick” from his pocket. That man was Martin Cooper of the Motorola Company. As he started talking into it, the age of the mobile phone was born.

Early phones were not strictly “mobile” as we know them today but were “transportable” being designed more for permanent installation in, for example, cars. The growth and improvement of “cellular” technology during the 1990’s with new base stations located relatively close to each other saw the disappearance of phones about the size of house bricks and the age of tiny hand held instruments come about.

Setting aside for a moment the argument surrounding both potential health issues which mobile phone signals may or may not create depending on which side of this particular fence you sit and the growth in number, size, shape and ever increasing degree of physical intrusiveness of the associated masts, for which this is neither the time nor the place to enter into that debate there is little doubt that the mobile phone has to be one of the greatest inventions of the last few years

However, such is now the degree of sophistication that our normal expectations of such devices have and continue to climb to even dizzier heights. Twenty first century homo sapiens is no longer satisfied if his communication device simply enables one individual to talk to another. To be even considered by the discerning individual as being remotely worthy of being part of his or her essential paraphernalia it now has to have the ability to send and receive text messages, connect to the internet, send and receive E mails, warn about speed cameras, regurgitate a whole host of screen savers and ring tones and, certainly in the case of phones for “Him”, have the complete functionality to surreptitiously photograph for example and later admiration, scrutiny and comparison in full glorious colour and mega pixels, without the telltale flash and with zoom if necessary, the voluptuousness of the female sitting in the next seat  on a number 9 bus.

There are of course functions, which as I write mobile phones cannot perform, including: -

o        Reversing the call charges automatically.

o        Correctly predicting the National Lottery numbers.

o        Scratching that itchy bit of your back whilst you’re driving whilst remaining in the “hands free” position and thus remaining within the law.

o        Making the tea.

I have it on equally good authority however (indeed the same good authority whose advice on not using video phones in the loo is outlined above), that mobile phones just might include these functions within the next year or two since many hundreds of scientists are furtively experimenting away in top secret research laboratories around the world seeking to provide solutions to these functions amongst many others.

Confidential information has however reached me that research into a potential mobile phone tea making function has recently been abandoned. Whist the technical issues of making a small enough heating element to fit in the body of the phone and that of getting not only the requisite water but also (optionally) milk and sugar into the thing via a suitable orifice had, I understand, been overcome, early experiments in attempting to boil the water actually flattened the battery in an average of four point two nine seconds thus resulting in a total malfunction of all the other functions and attributes more usually associated with mobile phones…like, for example, making or receiving phone calls.

Later experiments centred on attempting the tea making function whist the phone charger was actually attached and switched on. This had a somewhat better (though not convincingly substantiated) result in that the water continued to heat for one hour, thirty eight minutes and twenty odd seconds and reached an estimated temperature of eighty two degrees… the lack of accurate centigrade substantiation resulting from the fact that the liquid crystal display window had misted up too much by that time to read the temperature figures properly.

In their final research report leaked prior its official publication to the press, it appears that the research boffins have apparently finally conceded that even if the water had reached the claimed eighty two degrees it would still be rather tepid, would hardly brew a spoonful of Earl Grey, and, in any event, if one was in a situation of being able to use mains electric power to be able to run the phone charger, it would, irrespective of whether the phone was green or not, probably be simpler, easier, quicker and certainly more thirst quenching and environmentally friendly to put the kettle on instead.

The report also revealed that early research had dictated that actually putting the tea bag into the phone had not caused a major problem since automatic cassette loading of tea bags of a regular size, shape, weight and granular content had been almost perfected, the problem of ejecting the wet soggy swollen remains from the back of the battery compartment afterwards appeared insurmountable. Of greater concern was the damage done by escaping tannic acid to the battery terminal, which, the report described succinctly as, “terminal.”

It was not considered practical to include a cup. This was originally intended to be overcome by using a hermetically sealed double wall glass lined case in which the whole phone would be carried. The probability that this would increase the bulk and the weight of the total resulting product making it perhaps less attractive to the discerning buyer featured only slightly lower in the project risk register than not actually being able to hear the damned thing ring.

Reaction to the report has been mixed although significant concern was expressed by one of the main network operators that the vast revenue potential for their “pay as you brew” service would not be realised.  A spokesperson from another network operator indicated that plans for an advertising campaign for the tea making service had been scrapped, less due to the cancelled research than the fact that they couldn’t find a teetotal suitably well known celebrity daft enough or greedy enough to star in it.

Like many inventions though the mobile has its down side.

Constantly we are hearing in the media about the Government or this or that educational body’s concerns about falling standards of even basic reading and English. Is that really surprising when parents stick a mobile in their kids hands and then praise them to the hilt when they break the family record of 7.4 seconds when texting………

L O OW R U 2 Day

Naturally, such hi tech is expected to work at all times in all extremes of climate ranging from the searing heat of the Gobi Desert, the Indian monsoons, the six forty five train to Paddington, too, of course, the streamlined air conditioned fresh vegetable aisle of the local superstore.

Another controversial issue, again not perhaps the subject for debate here is the use of phones when driving.  Talking on a non hands free phone whilst driving creates what is considered to be perhaps the most dangerous activity whilst in charge of a moving vehicle. In recognition of this it has quite rightly become an offence and there are punitive penalties for being caught with a phone in one hand and a steering wheel in the other.

To be more specific the offence also….”prohibits the use of other hand held devices that permit two way communication, speech, text or other forms of data.” One presumes therefore that the use of semaphore flags is covered by this same prohibition.

Personally however I don’t believe that talking on a mobile phone is THE most dangerous of activities. My belief is that it ranks third. Drinking comes first. (For my personal views on the second ranking, see the Global Positioning chapter). By drinking too I don’t mean drinking as in alcohol consumption. I would never suggest that drinking too much alcohol and then driving a vehicle is anything less than a crime worthy in itself of the reintroduction of capital punishment.

No, I mean drinking as in consuming the contents of a can or bottle of any drink, not necessarily alcoholic, whilst at the wheel.

Let me give you a for instance. Some while ago I was short of time and driving to a meeting. My mobile phone was on the passenger seat of the car and began to incessantly ring. I picked it up and answered it. Shouldn’t have done. I know that. Completely illegal. Guilty as charged. However, I was driving an automatic and therefore didn’t need my left hand to change gear with. My eyes and concentration were firmly fixed on the road ahead. Suddenly there was a squeal of brakes behind me closely followed by the squeal of tortured rubber. Fortunately the then expected impact of his front bumper against my back one didn’t happen The driver of the car behind had been trying to extract the last dregs of liquid from a drinks can and had thus angled his neck so far back that not only was his concentration not on the road but at that particular instant his eyes must have been gazing up through his sunshine roof.

Whichever of those two scenarios you might consider the most dangerous in respect of driving, without one single shadow of a doubt an environment which must be considered to rank very highly on the list of abject dangers faced daily by homo pedestrian, to which no other single human activity even comes close, is people, particularly the male of the species, with a mobile phone in one hand and a supermarket trolley handle in the other. I have the bruises to prove it.

The problem is exasperated by the fact that along the aisles even simple driving rules like “keep to the left” don’t apply. It’s more like the fairground dodgems.

I strongly advocate that mobile phones are banned in shops. Either that or trolleys have to be fitted with rear view mirrors, or, much more importantly, brake lights.

I applaud the landlord of a local village pub the door to which displays a sign banning mobile phones from the premesis.

The trouble is that because communication is now so simple, and, by comparison with the days of early telephony, so very cheap, much of the telephone traffic and in particular text message traffic has sunk to the depths of total and abject trivia.

An example….

Take the case of one particular couple of my acquaintance who once and only once, and with disastrous results, experimented with this new phone technology to achieve the simplest, albeit one of the most tedious of domestic chores…food shopping.

They live in a lovely country village in the middle of nowhere. There is no village shop, the last one having long since succumbed to the pressures of the supermarket. .

She doesn’t drive.

He does.

The village has a nominal rural bus service to the nearest town which is about twenty miles away about once every two hours so it takes her several hours out of a day if she runs out of some vital domestic commodity and has to go shopping.

He’s gadget man.

He buys all the latest digital toys.

He’s the sort of man who, if someone ever invented a digital mousetrap would beat a www dot path to the web site.

She by contrast has not the slightest interest in such things and even has trouble turning the telly on.

He doesn’t know the supermarket layout.

She does.

He works in the town.

She doesn’t.

He’s appalled by the fact that she still used a pen and paper to compile her shopping list so he’s tried to teach her to send it to him as a text message so that he doesn’t have to drive home twenty odd miles to pick her up and then drive all the way back to town again just because she’s managed to run out of Brillo pads.

She’s reluctantly and none too successfully tried to learn.

So, on this particular Friday she compiled an electronic shopping list which she has more by luck than experience succeeded in texting to him so that he can do the shopping after work. Well that was the theory.

Lists or instructions, whether written down or in electronic form are, of course, open to interpretation. Lists sent by text from an inexperienced texter can be even more so.

He’s ended up that Friday evening standing in the superstore, empty trolley by his side by the deli counter, phone in hand trying to read the text and he’s becoming completely confused.

This was the result.

First Call.

“Hi  Luv.

It’s me.

Yes I’ve got the list.

I’m trying to understand it.

It says “been”…with to e’s and no “s”.

Do you me beans…or do you mean you’ve been on the bus and got the beans already?

What’s that..? Oh a spelling mistake.

OK. You haven’t got the beans then?

So,,,Do you want baked beans, runner beans, or broad beans….fresh or frozen?

Oh…kidney beans….. For the chilli…

Fresh or frozen?

Oh …tinned.

One tin or two?

One large tin or two small ones..ok….or see if they’re on “buy one get one free”

Right. OK I’ll get some.

The rest of the list? Fine I think. I’ll call you back if I have a problem.

Bye.ee.ee…..e.”

Second Call

“Hello Luv. Me again.

Yes I know I said I could understand the rest of the list but this bit wasn’t showing on the screen display when I called last time.

It says ‘ere “peppers”..Do you want ground peppers, black peppers or both?

Oh, neither…Green peppers and red peppers…for the chilli.

What’s that? Right.  One of each except if they’ve got yellow ones in which case get two.

Is that two yellow one’s instead of  green and red ones…or instead of?

Instead of. OK.

The rest of the list is ok I think but I’ll call you back if I have a problem.

Ok Luv  Got that…By.ee.eee.

Third Call

“Me again Luv.

Yes I know I said I understood the rest of the list. I do. I know what you want. What I don’t know is where are they?

Where are what?….The peppers….

Where am I now?

In the supermarket of course.

Where EXACTLY in the supermarket?

 Er…well let me see…I’m facing the front of the shop with the fridges with milk and stuff in on my left, and the chiller full of cream, yoghurt pots and these sweet things that you dip those finger biscuits in to on my right.

What’s that?

Slowly luv…the reception in here’s none too good.

….Ok….. I think I’ve got that but let me just run over that again.

Turn right…no..no.. left at the frozen veg, hard right by the cheese counter.

What’s that again?

I must charge this phone up its losing volume….

I said, I must charge this phone up its losing volume…

Did you say…Get a French Camembert?

It’s not on the list.

What’s that? It’s not on the list cos you couldn’t spell it.

Oh…Add it to the list. OK.

Then it’s what…? Straight on past the cooked ham…. Yes…..…

Do what? Say again. The signal in here is none too good

I said the reception in here is none too good.

If they’ve got one of those small round cooked bacon joints grab one of those while your passing?

While I’m passing what?

Oh, the counter with those small round cooked bacon joints on.

It’s not on the list.

It’s not on the list cos you’ve only just remembered it.

OK. I’ll add it on.

It should be the next shelf on the right, about waist height?

What should?

Oh…the place where the peppers are. The thing I asked in the first place.

Hang on love I can’t hear you they’re making some kind of announcement over the loudspeakers.

What announcement?

I don’t know what announcement I didn’t hear it I was trying to listen to you.

If there’s a queue at the Delli, you reckon I should turn left and go round the block by the mushrooms.

Sorry luv….. Say that again….

Someone went by with a squeaky trolley.

What’s that?

Did you say go by the mushrooms as in walk past them or buy them as in get some?

Get some.

They’re not on the list.

They’re not on the list cos you’ve only just remembered them

But you want some…?

Add them to the list…OK.

Open cup ones or the little buttons?

Either…

Ok…What for?

Oh…..of course….For the chilli….

Before I go is there anything else you need added to the list?

What’s that?

Did you say bread love?

Say again. The signal in here is none too good..

I said the reception in here is none too good.

Hang on love….Just a minute…

I’ve got to go now love. I’m sorry but I might not be able to get it all

Why not?

Sorry love did you say why not?

Because of that announcement.

What announcement? The one I said I didn’t hear properly earlier because I was trying to listen to you.

I’ve got to get to the check out, cos the shop shuts in five minutes time…Its Friday so they shut at  ten o’clock…….”

Total human logic……?  Zilch!.

It really does make you wonder if, to misquote the old cliché, was the end was really justified by the beans?

And…….

Considering the majority of major retailers, conscious of the fact that their customers do on occasions become confused, disorientated and indeed sometimes totally lost in the vast expanses of their ailed and freezer perimetered emporia, do specifically employ umpteen keen happy smiling, staff to ease the trauma and stress of shopping and guide their customers on an unencumbered path to the awaiting checkout.

There, subject to giving the correct answer to two mandatory questions:-

“Do you need any help with your packing?”…. to which the customary answer is “No.” (especially when all you’ve bought is your morning newspaper and a litre of milk)..and…

Have you got a points card?”…to which the usual answer is “Yes … (and I expect my loyalty to be recognised even though all I’ve bought is my morning newspaper and a litre of milk even though it’s worth probably less than three loyalty points).”

Whilst I do not suggest that these personnel are always easy to spot, I have it by experience, duly now passed on that those with phrases not dissimilar to “I’m here to help” or “Can I help you” emblazoned upon their store logod tee shirts are as good a place as any to start.

Realising that the dramatic increase in mobile phone traffic between the customer and his or her home base has considerably reduced the role of such personnel in fielding such traditional questions as “where might I find these new green energy saving light bulbs?” or countering such complaints as “Why is it every time I come in ‘ere to buy just one and only thing it seems to be the one and only thing that’s got a “Sorry we’re temporarily out of stock sign” on the shelf” … the more enlightened retailers have taken the opportunity to re-deploy these staff having first trained them to achieve qualified status in counselling such ailments as  PCD (Post Checkout Depression), and the ever increasing other stress related shopping malady that all too often manifests itself as MTR (Manic Trolley Rage). 

Author's Note

Spelling and mis-punctuation is deliberate