Sideswipe: July 13: How to make a phone call in the cell era

The annoyance of phone calls

Growing up in that pre-cell phone society doesn't excuse you from embracing modern phone etiquette where no one except your grandma is excited to get an unexpected call. Society has evolved quickly, along with technology, and most people now feel like calling without texting first feels entitled and demanding of someone's time – like you're asking them to drop what they're doing to talk to you immediately. A call that's missed is also less likely to be returned than a text message that's waiting there in black and white, suggesting gently that you remember to reply. If someone waits to reply to a message until they have the time to focus on it, you're also likely to get a more thought-out response, rather than something they say to you in a harried moment if you've called and snagged them at a bad time. There are reasons to call, like emergencies, illness or deaths in the family, or other conversations that feel too impersonal to share over text. But mostly it's best to text before dialling.

Plastic (not) Fantastic

Spotted in Thames Op Shop.

Winning at life

1. The new guy in marketing pitched a brand idea to the MD, he loved it. I bought the domain name anonymously for 89p during the meeting on my laptop. They ended up paying me £2000 for the URL.

2. When I can't sleep, I play a game where I try and swap sides of the bed with my girlfriend without her waking. I've only managed this twice but I've found a solid tactic in tucking her under the covers and rolling her slowly across the bed. I've named this game sausage roll.

Did you know

Last month, the CIA opened "Langley Field House", a gym that had been built on a former carpark at HQ. An internal naming contest featured such variants as "Gym Bond", "Gym 007", "Where The Parking Used to Be", and "Super Secret Spy Gym".

A London tennis club tried to train dogs to replace "ball boys" at Wimbledon. The trial failed because the dogs did not want to return the tennis balls.

Early American trains had wood-burning engines that would spew embers into the passenger cars, so some railways gave each passenger a bucket of sand to pour on a neighbour if they caught fire.