Dear Bert,


I am male and I really need your help with the following problem:



Mobile phones or two-cups-attached-with-string ?



Yours desperately,


Phil

Dear Phil,

If there's one thing that annoys me, it's having to talk to other people. Mine is a busy enough existence as it is, single-handedly putting the world to rights and socking it to The Man, without every ornery Tom, Dick and Sarah demanding my attention. So I don't bother with any of this new-fangled technology. However, I do appreciate that other people occasionally find the need to communicate, and I would imagine that many a young buck has found himself in the same quandary as your good self. So let's have a look at the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems, shall we?

The first priority for anyone in choosing a method of contacting their brothers in arms should be security. The Man is a devious foe and he has many tricks up his sleeve. Mobile phone manufacturers make great claims about how difficult it is to snoop on calls made over their networks, but I can tell you for a FACTOID that there are known backdoors which can make your clandestine communications akin to splashing your intentions over the front page of the Sun. With the old pots-and-string combo, however, interception is IMPOSSIBLE - you can't "tap into" the string, and if The Man's minions tamper with it, both parties will feel the tug. A victory for the old school, then.

The next thing to bear in mind is the likelihood that The Man will find out where you are. Now, as you probably know, that device you call a "mobile phone" is actually little more than a tracking device designed by The Man to keep tabs on you. The communication functionality is merely an add-on to make you carry it around voluntarily. At all times, The Man knows where you are to an accuracy of THREE TO FOUR MILLIMETRES, brains fans. On the other hand, your cups-and-string device will give away your location to anybody who simply follows the cord to the end. Your only protection comes from the hope that The Man might go the wrong way and rumble your "brother". So in this respect, it's level pegging.

The final, crucial, thing to bear in mind is expense. And I'm not just talking about dough, brainses. I'm talking about the cost to your SOUL. With two cups and a bit of string, your only outlay will be about 70p for a couple of strawberry Skis - the string you can borrow off your mum, like you always have. Then you're up and running and with negligible strain on your "realness quotient". Your mobile phone, on the other hand, will empty your pockets, consume your every waking hour with pointless tittle-tattle, leaving less time to "Fight the Power", and damage your digits with repetitive strain - and how are you going to give the world the finger when your hands are curled up in arthritic balls, eh? It'll turn your mind and body to mush, daddio. So once again, I'm coming down in favour of the time-honoured method here.

So there it is. Cast off The Man's electronic yoke, brothers. Free yourselves from the slavery of communication. Choose one person ONLY to talk to, and give them the other end of your bit of string and an empty yoghurt pot. We shall overcome.

Yours piously,

Bert