Until the other day, I had no idea of the price of mobile phones. A top of the range example of one of the latest models will set you back quite a few hundred quid.
Someone told me they were brilliant for downloading ‘apps’, and I have absolutely no reason to disbelieve them.
If I ever need an ‘app’ I’ll know were to go. Have you ever noticed the way some folk behave with their mobiles? It’s as though they are attached to a life support machine.
For example, four people come into a pub or a restaurant and sit at a table. They set up camp and appear to log onto their central control room by carefully sliding their fingers over the moving screen.
I’ve got this theory we are gradually being taken over by aliens from another galaxy who are manipulating us with our mobile phones.
If that’s the case, I can confidently say they’re onto a loser with me. I can just about make an ordinary phone call.
Until, that is, the other day. All by myself, completely unaided, I made an important discovery.
I am prepared to admit my discovery is small change when compared to the wheel or to antibiotics or such things, and I have no doubt that readers of the Pullyman scribbles everywhere will have made the same discovery ages ago, but to me, it’s a revelation. Let me explain.
Ever since the time the nice man who runs the buses declared war on the residents of Groudle Road, I have been a regular customer of A1 taxis.
One quick call and one of their saloon cars appears as if by magic. Their service is second to none except for one small detail. Text messages.
Message one informs me my taxi has been despatched. Message two informs me my taxi has arrived. Message three lets me know I have arrived home. And message four thanks me for choosing A1 taxis.
All well and good but it takes me as long to delete the messages as it took me to get home. Now to be fair, I’ve never been a texter.
When you watch any child of our time texting one of his or her mates you really do have to give credit where credit’s due. The top thumb speed must exceed that of the operator of one of the Bletchley Park Enigma decoders.
And on top of that they use what I would call text speak.
If it was left to me, I would buy a stamp and send a letter. It would be days quicker.
So I can say in all honesty the text messages that recently started to appear on the screen of my bog standard Manx Telecom mobile phone took me by surprise.
I may be getting on in years, but I’m sure I would have remembered meeting a Central European lady with long blonde hair, large firm breasts and a very affectionate pet cat.
From time to time I get invited to give little chats and poetry readings to various groups of ladies clubs or societies, but I never remember meeting anyone that fitted this lady’s description and I would have most certainly remembered discussing the use of Viagra.
So I can safely say the lady who sent the message had dialled the wrong number.
We all get the occasional wrong number. The phone rings, you answer it, and the caller asks to speak to Harry.
You chat for a couple of minutes and reassure him that no one with the name Harry lives at this number.
But then I had a couple of strange text messages from Thailand. Now this time I knew that something wasn’t quite right.
Apart from a couple of holidays in Cyprus we’d never been further east than Scarborough.
So out came the user’s manual. And there it was. The answer. I had made a discovery.
I followed a few simply instructions,and the job was done. I has disabled the text message function.
Now I have the best of both worlds. I can use A1 taxis without having to delete all those irritating texts.