Plonky Plonky Plonk Plonk

Talking with Alex, my dear friend exiled to Toulouse where her husband fiddles with Airbuses, I was delighted to discover a fellow refugee from the sheer hideousness of the modern world. Like me she is afflicted with pointless accoutrements: I pod, Blackberry, mobiles, laptops times 2, a stash of back issues of Country Life. Apart from the latter we are trapped in a nonsensical world of txting and twat head twittering.

It's not exactly Armageddon material I admit, but the production of a generation of illiterates does not bode well for the future of Western Civilization. Alex and I agree that it was much more invigorating standing in a Phone Box that smelt of vagrant wee while requesting a reverse the charges (collect in Americanese) call to ones loved one. At least it took some effort, and there was obviously commitment on someone's part (although not mine).

I'm seriously considering retiring to a cave with a years worth of tinned sardines and an annual subscription to Peoples Friend. I can grow a Charles Manson beard and chuck rocks at bicycling Guardian readers foolish enough to venture close to my inviolable domain.

If I can find a big enough cave I'll have a resident pub rock band who can play convincingly plonky plonky plonk plonk bass guitar while I rustle up some potato hooch and a brace of nymphomaniacs.