WHY DON`T THEY WORK WHEN YOU NEED THEM?????

This is my mobile phone - at least it was until yesterday.

I was heading along the M25 motorway en route to a series of `engagements` in Berkshire and Hampshire, when my progress was halted by a huge traffic jam. Apparently, there had been a bad accident along the stretch of motorway between Wisley and Chertsey earlier yesterday morning. I didn`t know this, as I hadn`t checked the traffic reports before I left home and I was enraptured by the CD I was playing of Ray Conniff, his orchestra and chorus. Well, who wouldn`t be?

After over two hours waiting in the traffic queue, it became obvious even to me that I was not going to be able to keep an `appointment` I had at 1.00pm in Southampton. So, I switched on my mobile phone to make the call, only to get a message that `IMSI failed.` Whatever that meant. What to do? Of course, use my winsome charm on the young lady sitting in the stationary car in front. I tapped on her window, showed her the message on my phone, asked if she had one (a repeatedly rhetorical question these days) and asked if she could dial the number I showed her, so I could explain my predicament.

She was very obliging - and my appointment was duly postponed for another day. What`s more, she very kindly refused to accept money from me to pay for the call - it may have been her `Help the Aged` Day.....but I was most grateful.

The question now is what to do about the mobile phone (it still doesn`t work today.) It`s just typical - you have the phone in the car for months on end, you take it for nice long drives, you don`t bother it much by making daft calls from supermarkets to enquire what size bananas she might fancy today and what happens when you really need it.....it doesn`t work. Wonderful!

There seems to be a choice between getting a new one, the technology of which might just frighten the life out of me, or not bother. Since I only have cause to use a mobile phone about once every millennium, I`m not sure I`ll bother, preferring to rely on my winsome charm, my codgeresque innocence and an endless supply of obliging young ladies.

Don`t ring me, `cos I`m not sure I can ring you.