Doin' the phone jam

This story amuses me intensely, even though I know it shouldn’t:

ZDNet UK – News – Scottish hoteliers jam mobiles

I’m one of those people who thinks that insensitive use of mobile phones is one of the banes of modern life. I sit on trains, enduring the sound of people screeching inanities at people they’re due to see in half an hour at a louder volume than they’d use to talk to the person sitting next to them. I walk down the street and see people paying more attention to their friends elsewhere than those they are actually with. I sit, doing interviews for the magazine, and ponder how rude it is to take a call on a mobile in the middle of a meeting. As for those who use their mobiles in public toilets… How I long for a pocket mobile hone jammer with which I could bring their anti-social socialising to an abrupt end.

However, what these hoteliers are doing is wrong and illegal. They have been milking travellers with extortionate phone charges for decades and are panicking now that the easy revenue stream this offered is drying up. Mobile phone are great boons to people who have to travel, who want to stay in touch with friends and family and who have broken down by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. I very rarely condone the breaking of the law in any circumstances.

None of this changes my delight at the thought of the obsessive mobile phone user suddenly caught without his beloved toy unexpectedly.