Give the check out assistant a medal and a promotion

Whatever did we do before someone invented the wheel..........electricity................the internet?

Things change.

Mobiles are so anti personal, they are everywhere, even in theatres, concerts and cinemas.

There is not a lot we can do about it though !

We can make it more difficult for those who broadcast their every move from their seat in the bus or their place in the supermarket queue.

How about taking out your own mobile and having a imaginary one-sided conversation? If it is in the supermarket it could be about how you will be late meeting up because someone in front of you is talking on the phone and holding up the queue. On the bus it could be on any subject whatsoever.

If you were feeling brave you could relay what you have just heard and say that it is fascinating what you can learn about a stranger. If you were really brave you could plan a bank heist, tell your imaginary friend every detail of a night of passion, recite the whole of some long boring poem, anything at all that would bring home to the offender that their every word can be heard by a dozen people.

I would not recommend this approach late at night when you have to walk deserted streets to get home, but the truth is that we CAN do something about it, if we feel strongly enough about it. If it were condemned whenever it happened, it would become more rare, like spitting in the street.

(Not sure I am brave enough to do it, unless REALLY annoyed.)

I have a friend who, when fed up with a crashing bore on his mobile on a train, leaned over and said in a husky voice, "Darling, do shut up and come back to bed".

absent , heard that one before !!!!!

That's as maybe Nonu but it certainly shut the irritating man up for the rest of the journey and amused the rest of the carriage.

Well it would , would not it ???

Nonu there is a lot you can do about it. Sitting back and just accepting things is how society sometimes gets itself into a bad place!

If people make their objections known, write to papers, start campaigns, act personally etc then you can make a difference. I think it is a cop out to say you can't do anything. We all can if we really want to.

I bet that Jo Clarke, or whatever her name was, thinks twice about using her mobile again at a supermarket checkout.

naneja .

em right , let the chips fall .

No idea what that means.

Manners maketh the person, or so I was told at School.
On a recent trip abroad I was at the checkout and had to leave to go upstairs to pay for an item as the electrical department was a franchise and not part of the supermarket on the ground floor. I was unaware. I guess by some comments that my name would have been mud but to be honest the smiles directed at me when I returned some 6 or 7 minutes later to continue checking out did not indicate that. I did apologise as best I could to the ladies queuing behind me, given my limited language skills, and I feel they saw me as a simple man doing what simple men do and being totally disorganised when it came to domestic matters.
Whatever did we do before mobile phones and why do we insist on being in verbal contact with all and sundry every minute of the day. My children tick me off for having a mobile which I keep switched off until I want to use it and I wouldn't dream of using it at a checkout, in a meeting, at a meal time or in earshot of a listening public. Perhaps I am odd!

Well, if you are odd, so am I! My mobile phone is strictly for emergencies - I have had £15 credit on ever since I got back from New Zealand. Nobody knows my mobile number, so I can keep it switched off. I get free landline calls to England and New Zealand via my computer but mostly I keep in touch with my family through Facebook.

You ar right PS , you sound a very mannerly person .