The mobile phone represents almost as much menace to our culture as the nuclear bomb. It increasingly assails us from all sides - from inside as well as without. They are pointed at us threateningly like guns in the street. They pollute our pubs. They bombard us on buses. They jar our train journeys. They intrude everywhere.

Yet their users are curiously unaware of all this, for they are not with us. On the pavements you pass them but they do not pass you. Their glazed look, their set stare is elsewhere. They are no longer one's fellow citizens, one's fellow human beings. Other people don't seem to exist for them.

But perhaps there are benefits to this particular communications technology. I witnessed an example the other day. As I walked by the Level in Brighton I saw two professional drinking companions sitting a few feet apart on a bench. Surprisingly they both had mobiles. One was slurring loudly in to his mobile: "Will yer pass the bottle, Jock?"

-Max Gorman, Ditchling Road, Brighton