Why is it so hard to live without a mobile phone?

Last week, my mobile phone stopped working. No big deal you might think. If you can get emails on your computer, and you’ve got a landline and that old-fashioned thing, post, why, you’re not cut off, are you?

There are, of course, people who wilfully eschew their phones so as to be more in touch with the present moment… birds, clouds, flowers etc. And I’m hardly a junkie. I don’t do social media. I’m a grown-up, so I’m not on Snapchat. Not having a phone should have been fine. But as I discovered, I was quickly cut out of society.

First off, you can’t tell the time. Obviously, when you’ve got a phone you don’t need a watch. Or a clock. And it’s remarkable once you don’t have a phone how few places turn out to have clocks. I was on my way to a hospital appointment last week and I was, as ever, late; but it turns out that businesses don’t have prominent office clocks that passers-by can look at. I managed to see a clock only in a fashionable estate agent which had an enormous one. And if you ask people the time, well, it’s the well-known preliminary to a mugging.

When you do get to your appointment, your NHS digital wallet is on your phone. Just as well, really, that the Covid regulations have been relaxed and I’m not travelling anywhere. Because my Covid vaccination passport is on the phone too. When I was in Paris, so was the French equivalent which allows you to get into museums and cafés.

When I had my phone, I bought e-tickets for rail journeys which you swipe on readers. But it turns out that if you don’t have a printer, there’s no way you can get at your tickets.