Essential Snobbery 101: Attend for the experience or stay at home

Acrobats from Africa

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending the Kalabanté Productions: Afrique En Cirque performance at the Aviva Studios, Factory International venue bordering Manchester to the northwest, courtesy of tickets from George House Trust.

This troupe from Guinea in West Africa brought to life the typical everyday life in West Africa, even though they represented themselves more as ambassadors of Africa than from a specific region.

The performance was full of African percussion and the versatility of the kora, a 21-stringed instrument common to West Africa, beyond which were dances and lots of acrobatics. Amongst the performers were two contortionists with freakish abilities that just astounded us with awe.

For me, it was a lovely, entertaining night; the innate African in me could not sit still as the percussion beats resonated, so you just had to move or rock in rhythm in your seat.

Arriving on African time

With everything African, certain African traits were presented with a surprising coincidence of our row of 16 seats in a section being populated by people seemingly of African origin.

However, my pique was with certain on my row who arrived over 30 minutes after the performance started, meaning we had to get up for them to get to their seats. The seat beside me was vacant for about an hour before the lady arrived, and the performance had hardly ended before she was the first to literally push her way through to leave. She probably should have just stayed home.

I do have my concerns about concert etiquette, though. I would attend a performance for the experience, in the moment. I might at times take notes, but I rarely do, except when I am attending for the second time, if the opportunity comes up.

The disruption of mobile phones

It has become the bane of live attendance to see many holding up their phones and recording the performance, obviously to relay to others that they were there, but I feel the quality of the experience is diminished by the distraction or concentration on their phones to ensure they get the somewhat essential elements of the performance.

The amateur recording of a performance would never meet the professional standards of a licensed recording of a performance with cameras at strategic locations and all the elements of zooming in on certain sections of the stage to highlight critical must-see actions.

Besides, in a dark theatre, the light or glare of the mobile phone recording events is both a distraction and an irritation to other members of the audience. Some concerts literally look like candlelight vigils, all phones aglow and in the line of sight of those behind trying to catch what is going on.

Come for the experience

In my view, this should be banned, you either have come for a live performance or you want to watch it on television at home. If indeed you need to encourage others to see the show, your word of mouth about the experience should suffice. If snippets of the show are necessary, the production company would probably have a professionally curated trailer of their performance to highlight what to expect; it is unlikely you can do better than them.

It might serve a purpose for you, and the best is to seek a photo opportunity with the performers after the show; that would be more unique and special than a bootlegged sneaky recording of a performance, whilst being an irritation to others. Thank you.

South Africa: We must make examples of horde rapists

Another recorded rape

My blood just runs cold when I read stories [1] of the sexual abuse of women, minors (girls and boys), the vulnerable and the powerless.

However, one unhealthy development in the perpetration of these devilish acts is the impunity that compels the wicked persons to record their exploits on cell phones and then distribute such as some celebration of achievement without consideration of the victim.

The turn of the phrase in the last paragraph is a bit awkward; these people had no consideration of the victim they abused. These beastly lowlifes in the garb of human skin preying on the innocent to satisfy their sexual aberrations have no place among us.

Garrotte them

In another time, they would have so easily belonged in Nero’s Coliseum, fed to lions for our glee, none of us shedding a tear at their screams when they are torn to shreds sating the hungry lions as we hope that those screams are amplified to their own hearing just as they have ignored and contemned the pleas, screams and cries of their victims.

The fact is this rotten practice of bottom-feeding cretins engaging in sex rape by the hordes is not peculiar to South Africa; we have had many reports of these nasty activities in the hallowed campuses of our tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Apparently, there are educated young men whose devilish passions find expression in the sexual humiliation of others thinking they are being macho when they have taken a status well below worms.

Now, the recording of these crimes has in some ways been helpful because it is admissible proof that the acts took place and it might mean that the victims do not have to face their assailants in court with such glaring evidence. An even more reprehensible extension of this is the others who find these recordings entertaining that they openly seek to view and share those experiences which must be tapping into an incipient and latent Neanderthal psyche that they must have. Shame on them.

It’s alarming

Rape as a means of pack mentality pleasure seeking and the viewing of such for titillation and arousal plumbs the depths of unspeakable depravity that should have such persons sectioned for life if not corralled in zoos that harbour the part of wild humanity that evolution left behind of what is good, wholesome, humane, beautiful and exemplary of our human wonder.

The case in South Africa is made even so heart-rending when we learnt that the victim was mentally disabled; after they finished their devious act, at least 7 of them; they attempted placating the poor, defenceless girl with 25 cents – woe betide them for generations on end - there can be no merciful course of justice for these men than to see the full wrath of the law that includes the bonus of a castration, their accursed crown jewels hung in the public places for the mediaeval gawping of the many as a deterrent to others.

They deserve exceptional justice

We are supposed to live in civilised times but if people decide to take liberties with the violation of the person, the dignity and the bodies of others for their pleasure, no fair justice will have been served if in our leniency the barbarous are punished by being made just to face the wall.

Personally, one would hate to see our society go back to the Stone Age but rabidly sexual barbarians will only understand the language they act out, if we cannot put them down like dogs, and dangle their heads like conkers in the town squares the least we could do is to make the most horrific example of them – we will not condone these acts in these times or at any time.

Source

[1] A South African rape, captured on video, exposes an epidemic | L.A. Times World

Thought Picnic: Leaving Reality for Virtuality

Aware to observe

There is a constant battle between being able to observe and being aware of ones surroundings. One will suppose awareness aids observance but that is the subject of some other research.

Touch is taking over the world, whilst Bill Gates promised information at our fingertips, he was at that time thinking of keyboards and screens – the times have moved on.

In all, there is much information garnered from touch but I find more of this when travelling not at the fingertips but at the touch of the thumb.

A touch of the distracted

In most cases, I will interact with my mobile phone holding it in one hand and navigating with the finger of the other hand. Too many cannot be bothered; they hold the phone and contrive the contortions of the phalanges to get the thumb of the same hand to work their phones.

In the process they get so engrossed in that activity completely oblivious of their surroundings and the people around them where they sit, where they stand or even when they walk. They are the most irksome when that is done riding their bikes as the handling of the bike almost makes me wish a very murky ditch is ready to break their fall.

Too many times I have boarded public transport and if anyone has a touch-to-interact mobile phone they are probably in that parallel universe absent to the present and the realities around them. It has become a societal nuisance for the want of a better description and it is likely to get worse.

Failing to learn

One cannot entirely relate this to poor attention spans or a general lack of awareness but I have hardly seen anyone on our Amsterdam Tram System who has cottoned on to the fact that if the push buttons at the exit doors are pressed to inform the driver to halt at the next stop and the lights are blinking, once the tram stops and the driver activates the doors, there is no need to press that button again, the door will sure open.

Maybe it is something about connecting the dots of events around you and paying heed to your surroundings but people have become automatons driven by touch with no other sensory perception utilised to show that the person exists with time, space, motion and interaction.

Dangers of this

These intra-personalised worlds of being oblivious cannot be to the benefit of our communities the worst situation being we may never be able to depend on eye witnesses and where help should be provided they are probably recording the circumstance to share on YouTube.

Besides our ability to appreciate beauty and take in our environments is lost to virtual worlds of virtual friends in virtual conversations doing virtually nothing for the enhancement of our realities.

We need to rollback these digital influences and get back to being social animals again – how we go about this, I would not know but the danger does loom and it will be more serious than depicted here. 

Thought Picnic: This is really heckling in church

The nuisance of mobiles

Just over a week ago, just as the New York Philharmonic were concluding Mahler’s Ninth Symphonic a mobile phone went off with its iPhone Marimba ring-tone and it became such a nuisance that the conductor stopped the orchestra to get the culprit to check and stop that ringing. [NYTimes]

The view is conductors rarely ever stop an orchestra in flow but this warranted an extraordinary action. Now, it is to be expected that when we go in to attend performances at the theatre or watch films at the cinema that people silence their phones not to constitute a nuisance and affect the enjoyment of others including themselves during the show.

There have been instances where actors have called out to people to switch off their phones in the middle of a performance though I have not heard of any occasion where such a culprit has been asked to leave the premises, but that I feel should eventually become the norm for the purposes of showing such recklessness and indifference will not be condoned in public.

Multilingualism in church

When I attend an event, I very much want to concentrate on the purpose of the event than be distracted by other attendees whose enthusiasm appears to override the social necessity to be decorous in polite company.

Nothing is as annoying as to be heckled by miscreants in the audience whatever their gripe to the discomfort of others.

My church is a young vibrant church, we can be exuberant and loud especially in the singing and the applause – it comes with the territory. There are people who dance, some jump though I have not seen anyone do cartwheels or somersaults yet, such will not be out of place for the part of the programme that will accommodate such expression.

Having stood before a church to speak before, I can understand the difficulties in maintaining flow if for every sentence spoken there is need for interpretation, my pastors are experts at this, they never skip a beat.

I was however amused with context and translation this morning when the call to prayer in Dutch had the words “U bent Heer” that the interpreter, bless his wonderful heart interpreted as “You are here” when I really think in context of the prayer what was meant was “You are Lord”. You can imagine that if native Dutch speakers mishear each other, those of us who are by no means word perfect have no chance – it did bring a wry smile to my face as this was repeated twice. It goes to show how “hier” (here) and “heer” (Lord) can be confused, then again, I might be wrong.

What we expect elsewhere

If I were to attend a lecture and for every valid point the lecturer made that sounded profound there was someone loudly acknowledging those points, I am sure the lecturer might at one point for all the compliments to his views be inclined to advise the person to be quiet and show their appreciation at the end of the lecture.

If in secular settings we maintain a modicum of consideration and behavioural adjustment with respect to people speaking to an audience it is disconcerting that church allows an almost unforgivable level of levity that is quite distracting that it can almost be considered heckling.

Speakeasy at church

I have sat through many a sermon in my church and had my attentiveness seriously disrupted by such interruptions, there are times during the preaching that certain things are said where a majority of the attendance at church interacts and responds, those are quite understandable, however, where every single sentence elicits a vocal egging on as if we are in some speakeasy environment one is caught between maintaining the peace and wanting to once and for all shut that person up.

Such was the feeling I had this morning and I am sure there were many more in church who felt just the same. In a church of a few hundred people one person cannot singularly be the most engaged and responsive to the preacher beyond everyone else that we are so annoyingly inconvenienced with the equivalent of for the purposes of churchianity – cat calls – because in any other setting, that is what they are – unnecessary, over-exuberant and inconsiderately selfish expressions of agreement with the preacher without the temperance of social graces to recognise that the setting is there for more than just the overly receptive attendee.

Something has to give

If this matter is not curtailed as it begins to irk at the level of the high-decibel grunts of female tennis players, there will be one almighty disruption of a sermon just like the conductor stopped the orchestra to deal with the ringing mobile phone hopefully to put an end to this situation.

I love my fellow church members, we are all there for reasons of fellowship and communion, but let no person use their liberty to create a stumbling block for others. I had better let my pastor read this because I am sure; I am not the only one who is beginning to feel quite strongly about this.

T-Mobile offers T-Stagnant deals

Sugar cane props

It is late shopping night in Amsterdam so I went into town, something I rarely do to get some stuff.

My backup cane was broken a few weeks ago when I employed it in creating a sense of order around me. It was a cane that I could split into three meaning it could go in my bag for convenience especially in aircraft luggage bins and it was quite light but sturdy.

I went to the Englishman Hatter for a replacement but they had all these trendy canes that would do for clowning rather than for formal attire.

Ending up with a make-do cane that splits and joins up with the aid of elastic band would be a stop-gap to when I can get the real thing. For once, having to lean on a sugar cane might just be as trendy as one can get.

Acquired for a piddle

T-Mobile had acquired Orange Netherland about half a year ago and they have been offering us deals to switch to new mobile contracts – a few months ago, I left one of the shops in a fit of pique because having signed a 12-month contract, I had really been railroaded into a 14-month contract – these companies get away with the most illegal stuff in my mind.

Today, I went to both the Orange and T-Mobile shops and I really could not find a decent deal, all their offers were really for kids with a flair for MP3 players and cameras – I am a businessman, I need a phone and a deal I can use for business.

Besides, I need a company that behaves like one that operates in Europe without charging me outrageous prices for Internet connectivity in another country where the self-same company pretends to be an entirely different commercial entity.

The European Commission needs to get on the case of these daylight bandits, it is just unacceptable.

Give me a deal I cannot refuse

Some people would say I could get a Blackberry – well, that is drink and blueberries are for muffins – just give me a phone that can handle multiple mail accounts, would serve wireless connectivity, 3G, EDGE, UMTS, GPRS and HSDPA (My HTC P3600 already does this.) and do not charge me the world to roam the world and still keep connected.

As far is T-Mobile is concerned, what I saw was the equivalent of a T-Stagnant deal, I need to shop around for something that really makes that useless “A-grade” customer rating I have with Orange make people throw deals at me like I have run into a waterfall.

Irksome airport landings

Baggage handling

Despite all the automation and technology involved in baggage handling at airports, the end of the chain still requires the man-handling of luggage to and from the cargo hold of planes.

Sometimes I have looked from inside the plane how bags get thrown, dumped or dropped, even with the occasional panicky official who has just noticed some baggage is about to leave on the wrong plane.

There was one instance, a suitcase was dropped a good 2 metres from the belt to the ground, I could say I felt ever bit of that drop and the possible consequences, as 7 years ago when the mishandling of my luggage by a no-frills airline had my laptop in pieces. I have not done no-frills since that episode.

The herd embarks

What really gets to me is the herd mentality of boarding and disembarking from a plane, the way people rush to get on considering we all have pre-assigned seats, people with seats in the aisles what to be on first and then discomfited by passengers with window seats, as if getting on early means you get to the destination faster.

Keep seat belts fastened ignored

Then on landing, as the aircraft taxies to a gate, the seat belt fastened lights are still on and some cretin gets up to open the overhead lockers to get his stuff, at which time other members of the cretin club get up to do the same whilst the plane is yet to come to a complete standstill.

At one time the cabin crew had to bark the order for all to sit down and fasten their seat belts. One wonders how getting up first to get your stuff is going to help you get out of the airport first when a majority of luggage is checked in, though I would not be surprised if some had also checked in their brains and with their manners, consideration and smartness.

Then just as the plane comes to a halt, lights still warning to keep seat belts fastened, they still get up and open the lockers grab their stuff and the wait standing for possibly 5 to 10 minutes before they are able to disembark and there is no way they would get their stuff from baggage reclaim any earlier than those who have been patient to get off the plane gracefully.

Mobiles off planes

It looks like impatience and stupidity vying for prominence in their heads.

Beyond that, there is that other herd stampede that occurs the moment we arrive, all mobile phones go off and everyone is calling arranging meets, dinner, coffees and so on, all these can wait till they are out in the arrival lounge but the fact that too many people are complete addicts to information and slaves of electronic communication; it is a blessing that a flight still has the sanctity of a mobile phone free zone even though the science of not using mobile phones on planes is suspect.

Methinks mobile phones should be checked in and not allowed in hand luggage though there are other security consequences for that, the rule to keep them switched off completely is good enough for me, it should be extended to say they should never be switched on in a plane.

In fact, the plane should be a Faraday Cage of sorts which is let down only in emergencies.

Kids at play

The final peeve is at baggage reclaim, what has been checked in is probably quite heavy luggage, but then you find that kids are allowed to run around the baggage belt and stand in the way of bigger people who really know their business about standing there.

In some cases, there is a complete lapse in discipline; the kids get on the belt, in one case the kid was pulling off stuff twice his size and the rotten parents proudly looked on at the initiative of their devil kid.

In exasperation, just before the kid gets mangled in the conveyor belt mechanism, one helps giving a look that could kill the parents only that the result of their deaths might leave one the guardian of an orphaned devil kid - one cannot live with that.

Once out of the airport, the relief that one has been separated from these crazy people is the joy of being on holiday or having returned to home sweet home.

If only I had an iGadget I liked

Managing MP3s

I am hardly a gadget freak, most probably a technophobe of sorts. I find that I only get gadgets that particularly suit a purpose I have and sometimes no one has been thinking along those lines.

Years ago, I had a number of speech and sermon files which were fragments of talks that needed to be kept in a particular order and played back in that same order to make sense of what was being said.

At first, I put the MP3s on CD but that could only take so much, I needed a device that could handle gigabytes of information, read MP3 tags, allow album arrangement and sequencing by track number.

There were so many MP3 CD players and hardly any hard-disk based portable players that offered all that functionality until I found the Creative DAP (Europe) or Nomad II that appeared to do everything I wanted then – this was before the iPod days and before long 6GB of disk space was insufficient for my needs.

I never got a new MP3 player, but a good friend gave me a 20GB player soon after, I have not asked for a bigger one, but it met my requirements. The market is now filled with entry-level 512 MB MP3 players, that would never have fulfilled my requirements 7 years ago.

Eventually, I found out about the SLiMP3 which allowed you to manage your MP3 files on a server over a network which then linked into your amplifier, there has been much evolution but no revolution.

A phone that works

Everyone who has a mobile phone probably has all their numbers on that device and hardly a backup of that information on some other storage medium be it a computer or on paper.

Indeed, I have not been satisfied with the snail’s pace of development in the home phone; you have integrated answering machine, remote access, possible Short Message Service (SMS) and hands-free functionality.

I have just over 200 numbers on my mobile phone, but there is probably only one phone on the market that allows you to transfer the information from your mobile phone to your home phone.

You either spend six Saturdays clicking each number into the home and all you need is a few names with letters that require a multi-press and FOILS is a matter of clicking 16 times and then an 11 digit number with all the OKs, each entry is the development of repetitive strain fatigue.

It makes you wonder why more devices do not exist to backup you mobile phone data to your PC and a USB cable can used to upload the information to your home phone, in fact, the date should be in your computer address book where it can be corrected, uploaded to your mobile phone and transmitted to your hands free home phone by infra-red, blue tooth or some other wireless means.

The iPhone is a revolution

I have been with Orange for just over 4 years, in the first 3, I had a contract, but now, I have a rolling renewal which is more-or-less a monthly contract.

This is because, I cannot find a decent phone to do what I want because mobile telephony companies prefer to maximize their profits than provide services that are beneficial to their customers.

There are very few phones that take advantage of WiFi connectivity, and where they exist, they are inflexible dud systems, the sophisticated devices cannot be found on the vendors’ shelves.

For instance, I want a phone that serves as a fully functional portable PDA and it does not have to be a BlackBerry where charges for having that kind of device for personal use are prohibitive.

Customer service rating - 0

When I did find a phone I could tolerate, it was running a Dutch operating system, now, Orange is at least a European company and I could not persuade anyone I contacted in that company to one phone configured in English even if it involved shipping it from the UK. There is a lack of initiative that pervades that company.

Worse still is when the latest version of one phone is available in one country and not available in another even though it is the same company and Orange has been a culprit in that matter many times.

In fact, mobile phone companies are going the way of the record and film companies, their inability to innovate and capture the essence of changing demands even provide groundbreaking devices means that outsiders would capture that market and change the face of it before they catch out that they have lost what used to be their niche.

I probably would never get an iPhone, just as I do not have an iMac, iPod or iGadget, but if this amazing innovation gets Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola to make useful products like HTC is introducing to the market and then take on ideas like iPhone such that I should never have to click the 7-key four times to start to say Sorry, we would have come a long way.

Extortionate prices

I am also seriously irked by the fact that with Orange in the Netherlands, France and the UK, I still end up paying prohibitive rates for making and taking calls when I am not in my home country.

These companies are dragging their feet on what should have the European Commission really laying down the law for competitive change on roaming charges. I cannot even tell you that WiFi connections in hotels average €22.00 for 24 hours with Vodafone being the most expensive at €29.50 when I am in Germany – it is utterly extortionate that one has to pay these prices in Europe for rotten phones and un-integrated infrastructure.

The sooner iPhone rocks this cosy boat, the better it would be for customers, now, iPhone does still have its issues, but the goal posts have moved and there is now a new paradigm in mobile communications coming to you in June.

More so, Apple struck a deal with Cingular in the United States where Cingular had to modify their services to accommodate additional features like the voice mail system, the whole methodology needs to change and thanks to Apple, we would yet see change in this rather tired market.

Much terror out of a mobile phone and a plastic bag

We too are now in it

One has at times commented about how the large and influential country of the Netherlands sometimes adopts a “me too” persona, to as it were, appear involved, relevant and at the centre of issues.

The Netherlands is in many cases quite influential in many ways, the international courts of justice are resident here; for a country with such little land space we are one of the largest food exporters; we used to be the most tolerant and liberal democracy and society amongst other things.

What has changed is that we now have little-minded politicians and leaders whose lack of initiative, foresight and stature projects the face of the Netherlands in less grander terms than when leaders of greater standing and stature ruled this beautiful land.

It is my prayer that come November when elections take place, a better crop of politicians come forward to lead this land; though, that is not to say that society itself has not changed to accommodate the mediocre over the better qualified.

A flight of fantasy

Just to illustrate how this war on terror has become an irrational fear of terror exciting hysteria, histrionics, and subjective conjecture we have now had our own flight scare which involved aborting a journey to Mumbai (Bombay) with the return to Schiphol and the arrest of 12 passengers.

Apparently, several passengers were fidgeting with mobile phones and plastic bags in what the Minister of Justice has now said is behaviour not normally seen amongst average passengers.

The cabin crew observed the behaviour in which the pilot and captain of the aircraft would have acted; the decision to turn the plane back would have been taken after some consideration and consultation with airport security – this led up the chain to the Minister of Justice who probably in conjunction with other cabinet colleagues like the Defence and Internal Affairs ministers scrambled two F-16 fighter planes to escort the plane back to Schiphol.

The F-16 fighter planes could have under certain circumstances been permitted to shoot down the plane that contained 149 souls and the crew, thankfully, that did not happen.

However, before landing, a good deal of the jet fuel was let out over the IJsselmeer to lighten the aircraft.

It now transpires that this terrorist scare might have been an overreaction to a perfectly normal situation where coincidences might have appeared as some pre-planned activity – the 12 would be freed and released without charge.

The big questions about air travel

My concern with this new event highlights a few issues that need serious analysis.

• What training have cabin crew all around the world received to appreciate possible terrorist threats from normal behavioural patterns to be expected from people in an enclosed space on a long-haul flight?
• What really constitutes normal average flight passenger behaviour in this day and age? Everyone is tense and anxious, these emotions could very well becloud observation and vigilance.
• What evidence would have been required to shoot down the plane along with its “innocent” passengers and crew and where would it have been shot down, since the flight path towards Bombay would most likely have been over land?
• What are the consequences of releasing thousands of litres of kerosene fuel into a lake which has active wildlife and human usage?
• Have captains on flights the requisite skills to make objective assessments of potential terrorist situations which are quite different from passenger irresponsibility situations?
• What has happened to the joy of air travel in the last few years?

The world, a bigger place

In the end, if air travel is to become so fraught with uncertainties, the world which became a smaller place in the 20^th Century is on the verge of becoming a much larger place in the 21^st Century as we switch back to land and sea travel.

Basically, what is required is greater sophistication in passenger screening before they board flights, but this all has to be in proportion without infringing on rights and freedoms and subjective profiling.

The complexities and logistics of airport security are illustrated in the Air Travel Security Planning Map on pages 4 and 5, there is no doubt that there have to be new ways of doing things for air travel to return to a pleasurable and exciting experience – that could be a long way off.

References

Donner plays down terror link after Schiphol scare

BBC NEWS | Europe | Jet alert suspects 'to be freed'

An Air Travel Security Planning Map (Pages 4 & 5) [The Wayback Machine]

Chatting up more bravado than a drunk

Mind the long bus

I could not help a smirk this morning as I rode on the bus to work. I usually take the backseat in the double-length 18-metre long bus because it gives me a 10-stride advantage of getting off and getting to the office quicker - well, it is a perception.

These long buses which could top 10 tonnes or more can be manoeuvred like snakes as they take corners, but the comfort could almost tempt you into thinking you are in a car.

That false sense of existence leads the absent-minded to expect the bus to stop abruptly if they suddenly realise that the bus is just about nose past their stop - very few drivers risk the act of applying the brakes though the passenger would almost always rain insults on the poor driver for not stopping.

We live in a world where you can never ever be at fault no matter how blatantly obvious it is.

So, today, I could not take the back seat, but the one just before because this voluminous man had splayed himself on the three back seats, well with one occupied by his rucksack.

Yapping like a dog on a phone

Then my peace and tranquillity was assaulted beyond tolerable limits as he mouthed into a phone call that almost lasted the whole journey, my irritation is getting quite palpable.

I suddenly thought, he would miss his stopped because he seemed so engrossed in his talk to be attentive to his surroundings, then he pressed the stop button to alert the driver, by which time it was obvious that driver would drive on to the next stop rather than turn his passengers in crash test dummies.

So, the man ended his conversation on the phone to rail abuse on the driver for not heeding the bell which the driver just ignored.

On reaching the next stop, when for which I think the driver had been alerted, the bus stopped and our man got off - in my mind the 1 kilometre walk back to his original stop and consequent destination would do him well.

However, the point is, I do not need scientific papers to clearly illustrate that there is nothing you can conveniently do with adequate concentration when you are chatting on a mobile phone.

Dangerous as drunks

It has been said car phone users are four times more likely to crash, that could just be as dangerous as drinking under the influence.

I have not just seen this kind of concentration stupor with car drivers, it applies to cyclists who I have see ride their bikes as if they are on a zigzag course and pedestrians who have walked into the path of vehicles all as they chat to their pals on their mobile phones.

To the exclusion of all else

Basically, there are many jobs where one can multi-task but when it comes to speaking on the phone you are trying to block out every kind of interference whilst trying to be completely communicative on the phone - this leads to a loss of awareness - a feature necessary to do this properly, rightly, meticulously, confidently and consciously.

The problem is, many do really think they are both capable and aware such that use of a mobile phone cannot in any way impair judgment - that is same bravado of drunk.

Doing right

I rarely do other things when I am on the phone except if it is related to a support calls - in fact, I just had a 30-minute conversation with an old colleague and left this article unfinished to concentrate on the call - it was social.

If you do have to talk, make safe your situation by aborting everything to concentrate on that call - in a car, hands-free sets are not the answer, rather, park your car and take the call, in other cases where there is risk of collision or accidents whilst walking or riding a bicycle - stop and find a place out of the way to take your call - better still, let your phone take a message and you can deal with it later when you are safe and sure.

Reference

Study: Drivers on Mobile Phones as Impaired as Drunks