A plague of phones

What is it about mobile phones that means anything remotely approaching good manners goes out of the window as soon as they are used?

Not everyone is a mobile lout of course, some people them discretely without involving everyone within earshot in their conversation. But we have all come across the oh so important corporal of industry who wants an entire railway carriage to know what a key cog they are in some minor empire or other as we are forced to listen to their loud, tedious one sided conversations.

Equally annoying are the people in shops who treat sales assistants with utter contempt by conducting conversations with a mobile phone while supposedly making a purchase. Last week a women spent more than £90 in my local supermarket while on the phone for the entire transaction. Not once did she acknowledge the assistant on the till, even handing over a couple of vouchers and a loyalty card, and there was certainly no room for hello, thank you or good bye in her conversation which, I have to be honest, hardly seemed to be about anything pressing or important. Banal would have been regarded as a compliment.

This week I saw a man buy a packet of cigarettes by mime (badly) in a newsagents rather than interrupt a conversation with a mate which seemed to be about getting legless and finding a way home from some pub or other the previous evening. In the days before mobiles if you were not at home, work or in a phone box you were out of touch and civilisation managed to not only survive but thrive. We even managed to land on the moon without mobiles.

We have happily banned smoking in public places because it a health hazard so perhaps mobile phone users should be encouraged to be more considerate with their usage for the same reason - mobile phones are very useful but they can be a serious health hazard particularly when they ha