Older readers will recall a time when a telephone was, by definition, attached to a wall, and therefore impossible to lose. If you wanted to walk down the road staring at your phone you had to drag the whole house along behind you.
But most people are opting not tohave a landline at all and rely entirely on their cellphones. As with any technological advance the unintended consequences have taken some time to become clear.
For instance, we've gradually come to accept that the plot device in which someone struggles to unlock their door and gets to a ringing phone just as the other person hangs up is no longer available to writers.
Younger readers will be unaware that under the previous system, a telephone was a communal tool, and anyone in the vicinity could answer its ring. In this way, when calling a friend or relative one often ended up talking to the wrong person. A bit like when you call Spark.
If the person on the other end were so inclined, this conversation could go on for quite some time, especially if that person was a friend's parent: "Oh, hello, look I'm glad I've got you, I've been a bit worried about X lately. Do you know what's going on? I mean I'm only his mother – he won't tell me anything."
As the years went by the unintended responder could be your friend's flatmate and you might discover all sorts of things about your friend of which you were unaware.
Later, you could get the 4-year-old who picked up the phone and refused to hand it over: "I've got a kitten!"
As often as not, you ended up having a pleasant conversation with the unintended answerers.
In a world where we try to control everything, it was a reminder that randomness had its benefits.
The mobile phones that in theory bring us more closely together have voided one opportunity for connection lost in this over-connected world. The old system could bring people together in a way that Instagram just can't replicate.
lliot Benchetrit and the banana. Photo / Supplied
There was a time when tennis players incurred ridicule by throwing rackets and displaying fits of violent passion over umpire's decisions or their own substandard play.
Now there's the case of Australian Open tennis player Elliot Benchetrit and the banana.
First of all, top marks to the Frenchman for his nutritional choice – excellent quick energy food, a banana. But he wasn't going to waste more precious energy by peeling it himself.
Benchetrit asked a ball girl to peel the banana for him. She appeared briefly nonplussed by the request before the umpire told Benchetrit off for it.
How mortifying - being told off for asking a child to peel you a banana.
He did his nation no credit. It's hard to imagine him withstanding torture by the Gestapo, or even handling a particularly hot soufflé dish.
Before rushing to judgment I checked: would he have seen a banana before – French people can be notoriously insular. And when do French mothers teach their sons how to peel a banana – perhaps he had not yet reached that age.
Let no further aspersions be cast on French manhood. According to my source in Paris – who ironically reported he was peeling a radish when I sought his view on the matter, Benchetrit is far from representative: "I don't have strong feelings about that, other than it would appear he's a douche."
Prince Harry. Photo / File
Like many people I have been trying and failing to care about the crisis facing His Recent Highness Prince Harry and his wife. I think I've come up with a workable solution for the pair, a job that would accommodate my desire not to hear about them, their desire for privacy and their need to earn their own money. Do they still have lighthouse keepers?
