Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
John Cooper Clarke the poet says he’s never had one and would never want one.
Minette Batters, until recently president of the NFU, admits hers could be a nightmare at times, particularly when it demands attention in the early hours.
So how attached are you to yours? I’m worried that I am getting a bit addicted and have started sleeping with mine.
As you probably recall, me and my mobiles have had a chequered past. For many years I got by without one, then I was persuaded to spend £5 on a “pensioner phone” which merely enabled the user to make and receive calls. A small step for technology types, a giant leap for me.
There was the episode with the phone and the skip when eventually I did graduate to a more up to date model. It was in my pocket when I discovered a leaking pen. Nothing for it, I was covered in blue ink. I threw the trousers in a skip. Later I could not find the phone. Then the thought struck. That pocket, much scrabbling about in a distinctly unsavoury bin failed to yield it.
Finally I bit the bullet. Really to have a phone in the car as a safety measure. But here’s the predicament. Is it appropriate for the bedroom? The trouble is, the phone is there beside you and there is this temptation to sneak a quick look. Have there been any emails, can I just look at the report on the Carlisle game. Must just check the weather forecast for tomorrow.
You hear about kids turning up bleary eyed for school having spent half the night playing games on their smartphones. As an adult I should be more responsible.
The Government is going to bring in regulations for use of mobile phones in schools. Surely most schools have their own set of rules already. I can understand parents worrying about some of the dark stuff that appears on phones. The mother of murdered schoolgirl Brianna Ghey is calling for restrictions under the age of 16.
But the phone is like the nuclear bomb. It can’t be disinvented. Kids will find a way. I find it incredible that 97 per cent of children under 12 have a phone.
The problem is not so much stopping the use of phones, it’s stopping the bad stuff that youngsters can find. The Government has aspirations, the makers of phones make promises. But nothing is really done to clean up their act.
The mobile phone is a monster that has its good and bad points. In 10 years’ time new technology will render the smartphone as useful as a 1930s wireless is now. It’s taking technology a whole lot further, into some questionable territory. Oh no, more sleepless nights.
Patricia
Patricia Vennells, the former chairman of the Post Office, was stripped of her CBE last week for “bringing the honours system into disrepute”.
It sounded more like something a Premier League football would get a yellow card for, rather than being part of the great miscarriage of justice that led to hundreds of postmasters being wrongly prosecuted, and in some cases jailed, for theft.
Miss Vennells was appointed a CBE in January 2019 at a time when legal proceedings were underway. Did nobody in the honours system think it might be wise to wait?
It took a television drama to really wake the nation up. It’s hard to sympathise with Vennells, but I suspect there are plenty worse who have their fingerprints on the scandal and may get away with it, their reputations untarnished while hers is the name people will remember.
And what about the great British public? Many of the wrongly accused postmasters and their families found themselves ostracised in their own communities, scorned by customers who rushed to judgement.
Postmasters who had given years of loyal and honest service to their customers might have counted on some loyalty in return. Not so. Tongues wagged, their children were abused at school and they were trashed by the very locals they might previously have regarded as friends. Not all the guilt lies with the Post Office.
Police outfoxed
Here’s an answer to the never-ending row over foxhunting.
Police in south London, concerned about drugs getting into prisons being delivered by drones, set up a sting which resulted in a stash of powdery substances being brought down outside Wandsworth jail.
However the cops were no match for a speedy fox which stole the suspicious package and was later found stoned out of its brains having mistaken the drugs for food.
While the police were reticent to comment, a spokesman on behalf of Reynard said it had taken several days to recover from what was thought to be cocaine or spice, the latter a favourite of inmates with its propensity to heighten aggression.
One thing I’m not going to do is get involved in the arguments over whether hunting still goes on. But if any foxes do get the blame for trouble at lambing time, a drone drop of drugs should keep them quiet while the hounds take a holiday.
