Dial M for maddening
No one in our family has ever liked talking over the phone. There is something about the intrusive nature of the beast, and this includes the passive-aggressive jauntiness of a mobile’s ringtone, that puts our backs up and makes me want to clam up like the mute woman in The Piano. I inherited my phobia from the Aged P, who instilled a belief in me from an early age that the Bakelite behemoth on the hall table only ever brought news of death and suffering. Or attracted the worst kind of ‘ear basher’ (Auntie Flo, in those days). I was seven before I realised it wasn’t called the ‘bloodyphone’. Now I’m afraid I have passed this irrational fear on to my own children, who both flee at the landline’s ring like the inhabitants of New York when King Kong goes on the rampage. We could, of course, just buy an...
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