One Fort in the Grave, with KEITH FORT

THE other day while looking round a store I discovered a young woman talking to a rack of undies.

I moved on feeling rather sorry for her until I passed her blind side and realised she was speaking into a mobile phone.

It doesn't matter where you are these days, someone always seems to be wandering about talking to themselves. In my young day they would probably have been hospitalised.

But in this day and age it's quickly become the norm.

Now I'm the first to admit that in emergencies or for women alone at night or in cars that break down a mobile phone could be a life saver.

But these communication devices, which seemed so exciting and so remotely unlikely when they were dreamed up as a piece of science fiction back in the 1950s now seem the stuff of science friction; the scourge of our age. Or, rather, my old age.

They've spawned a generation of posers, given the young an expensive new toy, moved forward our "must have" society one square, and been responsible for the greatest distortion of the English language since the Americans started trying to write.

No matter where you are in public, what you are listening to, whether you are in an audience, a queue, a store, a bus or a train, you're sure to be invaded by the strident ring, buzz, whistle or musical outburst of an infernal mobile phone.

I suppose we should all have been forewarned what was to come when we heard the story of the young man who talked loudly into his mobile boring everyone to death during a long train journey to London. It was only when a fellow passenger had a heart attack (no wonder!) and someone asked him to make an emergency call that he had to admit it was just a dummy phone!

That's the kind of mentality people have been all too eager to embrace from the moment the world turned Orange and we all became One-to-oners. Heaven help the next generation who will be able not only to talk the talk and text the message but "work before they get to work" on their mobiles.

Aren't we all getting a little brainwashed? While, of course, we're helping people to make millions pandering to our vanity.

You see the posers everywhere..... and suffer from them. On a trip to Saigon last year, touring a temple sacred to the Viets, a Scandinavian businessman in our party answered his piercing mobile. Standing in front of the altar he proceeded to do loud deals across the world while Buddhist monks prayed nearby. Some holiday.

As I waited at a set of red traffic lights last week a car screeched to a halt next to me stopping just in time as people were crossing. The driver was on a mobile.

I was 12th in a queue in a greetings card shop when a mobile chirped up. It was in the handbag of the woman being served. Did she wait for her change before answering? No fear. She withdrew the handset and made all 12 of us plus the shopkeeper twiddle our toes as she chatted away for several minutes to a friend in a loud voice completely oblivious to our growing frustration.

When I went to see Eric's statue on Morecambe's seafront a young lady asked me to stand aside so she could get a picture. She took her photo but first inserted a mobile phone in Eric's upraised hand! Not very funny, that, Ern.

My last train journey from Edinburgh to Preston in a crowded carriage was punctuated by every mobile phone tone invented, from pop to classical. The whole carriage full seemed to have a mobile and they were going off two and three at a time. One woman, who received about nine calls on the journey, had the annoying habit of standing in the centre of the carriage and talking in a loud voice. It was like listening to half a TV soap. It was an appalling journey.

From all the above you probably get the impression I hate mobile phones. I do. My sons are fed up with me railing on about them. On my recent birthday the boxed present from them was just the right shape for the usual bottle of my favourite whisky. I opened it with relish. Inside was a mobile phone.

That'll shut him up, I hear them say.