Monday 16 January 2012

Wynford Vaughan-Thomas on: Mobile Phones


It had been a while since Coyote and Roadrunner last paid me a visit.  I'd begun to imagine what had happened to them.  Perhaps they'd been arrested in Pembroke Dock for crimes against poo bags.  Maybe they'd been run over in Holyhead by a one-legged man in a wheelchair.  Perhaps they'd fallen foul of an angry Range Rover driver...

...The more I thought about it, the more I missed them.  They may be an irksome pair of idiots who are both a sandwich short of a picnic; perhaps they are both a banana short of a bunch - but it does get lonely up here.  It's even more lonely when it's frosty because I can't even see the sheep.  I only know they're there because of their incessant bleating.  And the faint waft of crap on the morning air.

So, as much as it pains me to say it, my heart smiled a little when I saw the familiar blue car appearing once again.  Perhaps they'd bought me something nice!  A steak and onion pie, maybe.  Or a keg of warm ale.  Ooh...maybe they'd brought me a slice of Kendal Mint Cake and a tartan flask of weak tea!

No.  Of course they hadn't.  They brought me a strange pink thing with a tiny television screen and buttons on it.  What - in the name of all that is mountainous - was this contraption?  After being educated in the technology of modern music, I was dubious to say the least.  Coyote leant by me and started to explain.

"This, Wynnie," he said, "is a mobile phone."  I glared at him.  How can a telephone be mobile?  There were no wheels on it!  The man had clearly lost his last marble.  
"Where are the wires?"  I asked.  I was going to catch him out.
"There aren't any.  That's why it's 'mobile'.  Your voice is turned into a signal that flies through the air and bounces around via big aerials."
"Were you dropped on your head as a child?" I asked.
"No...but Roadrunner did knee me in the face last week."
"Explains a lot," I concurred.  "So, does this mean that I can speak to people from up here?"
"Well...no.  Because this is Roadrunner's old phone.  It only works on a Wednesday afternoon when she sacrifices a goat at the entrance of King Arthur's Labyrinth while chanting the theme tune to 'Wales Today' and wearing black robes and a crown of elderberries."
I frowned.  "Shower of shit."
They both smiled.  "We thought you'd say that."

And with that, they left.  They didn't take the damned thing with them, either.  It's still stuck to the end of my finger like some kind of tenacious bogey.  A pink one.  Bastards.

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