Last weekend found me on an urgent hunt for a burner phone, the ‘dumb’ kind we all used before smartphones. The term was popularised by hit TV shows such as The Wire where they were used in drug dealing. But this is not the use I have in mind.
I am on a desperate mission to lock down my attention span rather than have it hijacked by the time-wasting temptations of social media and gaming apps.
I regard myself as fairly disciplined but, according to my screen time notifications, I average seven hours a day. Seven hours! If true, which I can’t accept, that’s almost half the time I’m awake.
My phone habit has crept up on me. I once had about ten apps on it. Now I have 84.
For years I only glanced at Instagram now and then. Now I’m checking my feed as soon as I wake. Once the app merely contained pictures of friends on holiday, then people started posting all sorts of need-to-know information, like who’s died, whose been born, who’s moving jobs.
And, of course, it’s also full of content it knows you can’t resist. Much of my Instagram time is spent glued to videos of women braiding their adorable children’s hair, which proliferate on my feed the longer I watch them.
Then there’s the intrusive group chatter of WhatsApp. I barely used it a few years ago but now find it endlessly tempting to share family jokes with my siblings rather than write an article.
And let’s not forget Candy Crush, a game I happily spend about an hour a day fiddling around with. An hour a day of mindless poking at a phone while neon bright images of cartoon sweets burn themselves into my retina – surely the very definition of wasting one’s life. This is appallingly addictive behaviour from a supposedly intelligent adult.
So, I’m going cold turkey.
I am now the proud owner of a Nokia 110, where none of these diversions are available. The plan is to give the number of this phone to a few people for use in an emergency. Then I will turn off the smartphone with all its trickery and give myself a clear, focused working day without interruption.
Alas, the experiment has been a limited success. I’m so out of practice with old phones I still haven’t managed to work out how to answer a call. Perhaps the way forward is all the way back to a landline…
Whatever next, a fine for sneezing?
We are increasingly faced with a fine on living. Despite it being her fifth offence in eight years, I sympathise with TV presenter Kirsty Gallacher, who has lost her driving licence and been fined more than £1,000 for driving at 35mph in a 30mph speed zone.
I live in fear of the same happening, since I’ve been hauled up several times for mistakenly edging up to 24mph in the London 20mph limit.
But that’s not the only fine in town. Last month, a woman was fined £150 for pouring coffee down a drain in Richmond. Fortunately, the fine has been rescinded, but how ridiculous. I’m always pouring the dregs of my coffee out of my car window – and not, tempting as it may be, in the way of approaching mad cyclists.
Then, last week, the unfortunate nurse Loretta Alvarez was fined £1,000 by Hounslow council for leaving a cardboard envelope beside the overflowing communal bins shared by 25 properties.
This is a new racket, one which has already trapped two members of my family. It seemingly involves the council digging around in rubbish to find a home address to submit a fine to, even if the supposed fly-tipping is because reduced collection times mean the bins are full or the council has removed any available bins. Soon we’ll be fined for sneezing in public.
Losing BBC would make us all poorer
I’m fed up with the BBC bashing fest. I’m sure most people don’t give a jot whether director general Tim Davie resigns but they do care about The Shipping Forecast, Traitors, Woman’s Hour, Wimbledon, The Today Programme, Antiques Roadshow… you get my drift.
The BBC is a remarkable institution and never have the now hackneyed words of Joni Mitchell’s ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’ been more appropriate.
A few years ago, an Egyptian guide was showing me around the Temple of Luxor and telling me of his admiration for this country. ‘What do you love so much?’ I asked. The National Trust and the BBC were his answers, his eyes glowing with appreciation.
He’s right and we will be inestimably the poorer in the eyes of the world if we lose the BBC.
My big dog theory… we love huge hounds
What’s with the rise in popularity of massive dogs? A recent report states there are more dogs than under-five-year-olds in London and many of them are huge.
It used to be that the trendy mutt was small and cute, poking out of a Miu Miu bag, or a fluffy
Cockapoo, but round my way, it’s massive hounds such as Weimaraners, Great Danes and German Shepherds which are paraded around by fashionable couples sipping their matcha tea.
Is Toby the greatest Iago? Oh no he’s not!
I’ve just seen Toby Jones, one of the nation’s favourite actors, play Iago in a West End production of Othello. Jones, of Mr Bates vs The Post Office fame, is an actor with wide range but his comedic Iago had me confused.
Iago is arguably Shakespeare’s most evil character, a man capable of the darkest of deeds.
Instead of using his skills to show the audience a human whose moral compass doesn’t exist, Jones gives a performance demonstrating he would be a the perfect candidate for a pantomime dame.
I’m in a tights spot as winter kicks in
I’ve just about succeeded in keeping my legs bare, but next week a big temperature drop is forecast.
Forget the clocks going back, it’s the moment of the first, hated tights that brings on my winter gloom – and makes me start Googling winter sun getaways even though I know I’m going nowhere.
