THE next time I see someone using their mobile phone in a supermarket I will (politely) take it from their hands, drop it on the floor and stamp on it repeatedly and with great vigour.

I hope the owner will not take it personally. It's just that I am sick to the back teeth of hearing people holler "do we need any carrots?" at the top of their voice on a Sunday morning, or "have we got enough oven chips?".

I was in Sainsbury's on Sunday morning and honestly the constant bleating of mobile phones was enough to send you round the twist. They are the musak of our times. Where once you would wander round the supermarket to the strains of the Carpenters or ABBA, now it's electronic bleeping followed by some lowlife testing their vocal chords. "'Ello, can't 'ere you." Well put the phone down then you idiot.

Whatever happened to the scrap of paper and the puzzled-looking husband shuffling round the supermarket as if he were buying dodgy lingerie?

Now every second person you meet as you round the household goods aisle acts like they are conducting a high-powered business deal.

The mobile phone is like a particularly annoying child, constantly begging for attention. And what most owners seem to have forgotten is that the phone has one advantage over a child: it has an off button.

People advise you to get a mobile phone because it will be "useful". This means of course that they can pester you any hour of day or night with calls that if they thought for a minute longer, would not need to be made.

When I was growing up we did not even have a phone in the house and personally I loved it. Even today I find the holler of the phone in the hall rather intrusive. It means that people can catch you when you are least willing or able to talk.

I hanker at times for the corner phone box and when you could choose when to ring people.

I noticed at the weekend that BT is considering not installing any new phone boxes because the advent of the mobile phone means that they are no longer used so much. You could see the days of the public phone were numbered when they started putting in the ones with a bit missing at the bottom, so the wind would come whipping in around your ankles like it was blowing off the North Sea.

Like the internet, mobile phones are useful tools in their place. Should I ever be stuck at the top of Mount Everest without warm clothing or a handy Sherpa to help me down, no doubt I would be glad of a mobile phone.

Hell, I might even log on to www.it'sbloodyfreezinguphere.com and chat to other worldwide wierdos about their experiences on remote mountain tops.

Everything has its place, even the internet.