I have this friend who for the 7 years I have known him, always has been a mobile-phone lover.
He will answer his mobile, but then blinker out the rest of the world, infuriatingly for those with him or around him. It makes you feel like you might as well not be there (and usually would rather not). He has one of those loud carrying voices too, so everyone looks round. So embarassing.
If you are at someone's desk it is easy to say "Come and see me when you are finished", but when you are down the pub or in a shop you can't really just wander off. We have tried telling him, but he never stops. And quite often he neglects to tone his conversation to the surroundings, as you will see from some of his classics:
1) Inviting someone down the pub, answering his phone as they sat down, and talking for an hour. After he finished his call, it was time to leave.
2) Very loudly describing what he would like to do to a very pretty girl we had met, to a third party on the other end of his phone. On a packed train out of King's Cross. The words "until she bleeds" were used. People did not look happy.
3) Getting left behind at the top of Mount Snowdon. After him being on the phone for half an hour we all got bored and started to make our way down. "HELLOOOOOOO! I'M ON A MOUNTAIN! NAH, IT'S RUBBISH!"
4) Standing in a non-sex-oriented area of Soho, after we had just bought an inflatable doll as a joke present for our mate's 21st. He shouted down the phone "Yeh, I've just bought an inflatable Hustler Slut Sex Doll. Yeah, s'brilliant! Apparently it's got a realistic vagina and everything!". Kids were present.
5) I had asked for his opinion on a kitchen, but by the time he got to the shed I had decided it was rubbish. But before I could say "Let's go down the road to MFI" he was in a call. So I had to sit in the kitchen section of Focus for THIRTY MINUTES whilst he blabbed down his phone.
However, I am sure there are much worse offenders than he. Texting taxi-drivers never get a tip from me, a tip is for good service not endangering life. I've seen Parisiens texting on mopeds. I have sometimes wondered, there must be a number of people killed each year due to a motorist texting. How selfish of the offenders to put the safety of those around them in second place to their "Nvr gess wot, dave shgd shazza last nite! cu l8r m8, tracy"
The CC box in e-mail can be an issue for sure. I have spent 1 minute writing an e-mail, and 5 minutes trying to decide who should receive it or not. CC-box politics, I'm sure there is a PhD thesis in it!
