MOBILE phones have changed the way we live. Everyone now has instant communication with everyone else whether you want it or not.

I remember the days when husbands didn’t want to be found on their way home from work. When girls didn’t want bothering if they said they were staying in and washing their hair. When tradesmen on the road could get home early with no-one the wiser and reporters out on a story could go missing for whole lunchtimes chasing up leads, usually in the bar of the Rose and Wotsit.

Although sometimes the lie was discovered.

A friend of mine, who had gone to London for a weekend of merriment, failed to appear at work on Monday morning and phoned the news editor to claim he was ill – just as Big Ben struck the hour outside the phone box he was using on the Embankment.

But those days are long gone now that everybody has a mobile and if you can’t be found at a moment’s notice you become a second class citizen.

Which is why I reported five weeks ago that I had I changed my old cellphone. I had never understood it anyway and the keys were too small and I never even had it switched on unless I wanted to make a call.

So I invested in a new one, partly because I was embarrassed by my old technology and partly because a new one would allow me to check emails on the road. Not that I am on the road that often, I have to admit. Who knows, I might even indulge in Twittering.

The new phone has a large and colourful touch screen with a full qwerty keyboard and things called aps displayed on five screens (and yes, you’re right, I haven’t a clue what they do). With one flick of the finger I can scroll through all my contacts and actually make a connection by speaking into it.

Wow, I thought. This really does bring me into the modern world.

This new technology would open new vistas for me. This time I left it switched on permanently.

That was five weeks ago. Since then I have had three calls. An Indian monk gets more calls than me.

The first came as I was going through security at Liverpool Airport so I switched it off without answering.

The second came as I was driving and, by the time I had found somewhere to pull over, it had stopped.

The third time, I discovered I didn’t know how to answer it. Apparently you drag the green phone to the side.

Apart from that, I have never been able to make an internet connection so I can’t check emails on the road and my transient musings are, therefore, lost to Twitter. Which is probably just as well.

As I made another monthly payment that gave me the promise of 100 minutes of calls (I only ever phone the takeaway), 300 texts (I don’t know how to send a text) and 50MB of web access (which I can’t get), I considered whether this had been a wise or necessary investment.

To paraphrase Wally Batty: “What do I need a new phone for at my time of life?”

I don’t go anywhere without my wife so I can’t remain incommunicado and no-one else is interested.