The tyranny of the smart phone

‘Can I ask you why you don’t want a smart phone?’ said the chirpy manager, as I stood blinking in front of him in the intensely red Vodafone shop.

I took my iPhone out of my bag and explained that I wanted a second phone with no brain whatsoever.

A stupid, backward phone was what I wanted. Not a scheming, conniving monster like this one. And I said this quietly, so that my iPhone didn’t hear me, because that is how frightened I am of it.

‘Ah!’ said the pin-striped tech wizard, as if he had heard of this situation before, or perhaps increasingly.

Reaching for the bottom shelf, he told me there was only one such phone in his shop. He put a tiny, plastic Nokia in my hands. It was so basic it was as light as a feather.

I said that would do fine. I got out of my purse a spare sim card connected to a phone line that once belonged to an old BlackBerry and told the man I wanted to put that into the Nokia.