Oh Mr Bell, what have you wrought?

Current mood: Telephonic
Current music: Ringin'

Let us take a moment to mentally salute Alexander Graham Bell. While he wasn't the actual 'first inventor' of the telephone - so many people had a hand in developing this miraculous invention, that it's hard to say who should really get the credit - he certainly made quite a large contribution in creating the telephone system. If you want to know more, here's a useful link for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_telephone

Anyway, I think the telephone is one of the greatest modern inventions. For me, it's up there with computers & the Internet, cars, trains and planes. I have friends scattered around the globe and it's nice to think that despite the intervening distance, I can still have real-time conversations with them and hear their voices, just because of this wonderfully cunning device (aided by some satellites, of course).

However, I'm sure that when Bell created his version of the telephone, he wouldn't have foreseen the coming of the Mobile Phone Culture.

It took me ever so long to get around to buying a mobile phone; admittedly, more through procrastination than through being a Luddite (I do know someone who is... I had to buy a phone for him). I find mobile phones incredibly useful. There are times, though, when I feel that they might be somewhat overused. I remember one occasion where I was sitting in a restaurant with a bunch of Hong Kongers, and feeling thoroughly amused. All around the table, every single person was engaged in telephonic conversation with some unseen person on the other end. None of the people actually present were speaking to each other... Now what is the point of that?

Then you have the people with the hands-free sets, who pick out conversations out of thin air. I always find it somewhat confusing when some passer-by says 'Hello!' and I have to stop myself from replying when I realise that they weren't friendly folks talking to me...

Just the other day I started hallucinating that my mobile phone was ringing, even when it wasn't. This may seem slightly disturbing, but it is what happens to you when your mother starts calling you up every few minutes to say: "Where are you? Are you coming home yet?" (I happened to be staying late at the office - the only place where I get an Internet connection - trying to set up this blog. I've told my folks time and again that in order to stop this nasty Staying Late habit, they need to get a nice broadband connection at home. So far this has failed to materialise.)

Similarly, I find that when I'm in the bath, I keep imagining that the phone is ringing, even when my ears swear they can't hear a thing. Perhaps my conscious is saying, "Mmm, let's just relax in this lovely warm water" while my subconscious keeps insisting, "OK, but what are we missing?" What's particularly annoying is that the phones in my home don't ring like ordinary phones; they have annoying ring-tones. The one that gets my goat in particular plays the opening of 'Für Elise'. As if turning Beethoven's charming piece into whiney electronic Muzak isn't bad enough, the manufacturers of this particular phone compound their mistake by getting the notes wrong. It plays, "Dee-duh-dee-duh-dee-duh-ding-duh-dum" and the ding is a semitone too high. For someone with a musical ear, this seriously grates on the nerves; much in the same way that the sound of a cat's claws down a blackboard would affect any listener. When we first got the phone, I used to wince every time the darn thing rang. It didn't help that the phone in the other room wailed 'Hungarian Dance No. 5 in F# minor' by Brahms, which clashes horribly.

Despite my ranting on the use of electronic squeals in phones of all kinds, I still think the telephone is pretty great. I shall leave you to cogitate on my wittering. And remember:

"Das Pferd frißt keinen Gurkensalat." (The horse eats no cucumber salad.)

(To understand why I said that, you'll have to look up the Wikipedia entry I mentioned, under the section entitled 'Johann Philipp Reis'...)