Mobile Phones: Also make calls

I've reached a watershed in life.

I'm now at that age when all I want my phone to do is make and receive calls.

Since the back end of the 90's, I've had a mobile phone. In those halcyon days of fledgling mobile communications, they were still brick-sized and had the technological advancements of a Speak 'n' Spell. Gradually though, they started getting all kinds of clever gizmos; camera, video, Internet, and now you can see whether your shelves are level. How clever.

The problem is though, in amongst all of this LCD-based jiggery-pokery, we forgot about the calls, man. The reason why we bought the chuffing thing in the first place.

It's no surprise today to learn that mobiles are wank. Plastic, barely-put-together pieces of chuckaway tripe which last 5 minutes before you're calling the Helpdesk (ironically) complaining that it's bust. To save on brass, I recently switched from a 12-month to 18-month contract, which also meant I got a better phone. And by 'better' I mean 'fell apart in the Trafford Centre a couple of months after I got it when I dared to open it and attempt to send a text'.

In that event, I went back to my previous phone; a solid, black and silver clamshell Nokia which I'd had for donkey's years. Very pleased was I, as I smugly made calls and what have you whilst others carried handfuls of broken plastic components which used to resemble an iPhone. However, last week, my phone decided enough was enough, and in the space of around a week went from being AOK to being fucked. And by 'fucked' I actually mean 'got on my tits to such an extent that I chucked it into the footwell of my car and it more or less exploded'.

Long story short, I popped into Asda, and for a score got myself a pay-as-you-go phone, which I simply put my contract SIM in and I haven't looked back. Alright, it's not going to win any design awards, and Carol Vorderman has to pop round to help me send a text, but it WORKS, which is something of a novelty in the mobile phone world these days.

The irony is, the older and more financially viable we become, the more we hark back to cheap and cheerful technology which actually works. That said, I've only had it a week, and in all likelihood I'll be popping back to Asda with a handful of plastic components in the near future...