Q. At a private screening of a documentary about the artist David Bomberg, a woman sitting near me in the hand-picked audience carried on using her iPhone to send and receive messages. She had the phone on silent but was generating a rival source of light to the screen we were all supposed to be watching. Thus we could not fully concentrate. Was there an elegant way I might have put a stop to this insensitive behaviour? What would you have said, Mary?
— S.H-H., London SW3
A. There is no need to say anything. Cinema usherettes of yore would curb rowdy or undesirable behaviour in the stalls by shining a torch onto the miscreants. You might replicate this practice by using the iTorch facility on your own iPhone to project onto the culprit an exposing pool of light. As those around turn to follow the focus of the beam, the culprit is faced with Bateman- cartoon style censure and you soon see an end to the nuisance.
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