It’s that time of year again, when the old phone starts packing up and I am reminded that my Vodafone (with an F)  contract entitles me to a new one.  This time the BlackBerry Storm is on offer, beaming down at me from billboards everywhere, and true to their word, Vodafone dispatch one to me straight away.  It’s  an i-Phone wannabe, deliciously shiny and new, with a special trampoline screen that stops your fingers sliding all over it like novice ice skaters.   Luckily it’s on a 14 day trial basis.  I get past the Apple-incompatible synch-ing of numbers by using my husband’s prehistoric PC to download all the information from my old phone to my new one.  I realise how little of the new features I will actually use - I have a camera and an i-pod after all, so what do I need beyond emails and texts?  But I persevere because I hate to be defeated by new technology.  I must get to grips with the new one letter per key keyboard because if I don’t I am three steps away from becoming an old person, dazzled and defeated by new technology.  But I am slow.  And on my old Pearl I was the fastest texter in the west.  

But here’s what I find really annoying; in spite of having the new fancy-pants phone, it’s still the same old people who call.  Because the phone looks so cool I keep waiting for a whole new rosta of exciting people to be phoning.  I don’t even know who I’m waiting for.  

I guess some things can’t be fixed by new technology after all.