Ring, Ring.....I'm a Barbie Girl in a Barbie World...

The mobile telephone has come a long way since the 1980s. I remember a mate of mine, Ben, turned up at East Croydon train station carrying what looked suspisciously like a car battery with a home telephone attached to it.....he'd get shot nowadays as a suspected terrorist (I know it's off the subject, but it's amazing what you could take onto a train with you back then). Calling it a mobile telephone was a bit misleading. You couldn't fit it into the glovebox of your Ford Escort, let alone the breast pocket of your frilly, New Romantic polyester jacket...but, once you raised the antenna, cranked up the battery and sprayed everyone with radiation you were making a statement.....you were an individual.

In the 1990s someone's mobile would ring and we'd all reach into our Boss suits or draw the offending piece from our custom-made leather holsters - like some sort of synchronised street theatre - because we couldn't distinguish between the ringtone of our telephone and that of our fellow 'merchant bankers'.....the aim of our individualism was to fit in with the crowd.

In the 2000s the personal ringtone seemed like the ideal solution! Now you could customise your ringtone to match your personality.....unfortunately, when someone calls you on a crowded train and your telephone bursts into a ear-splitting, polyphonic rendition of Barbie Girl it also reveals your poor taste in music, general lack of self esteem and complete lack of self awareness.

You are an individual.....you are the only one in the carraige that is a tosser.