Incommunicado

As I type this, I'm sitting in a Pacific Coffee in Telford Plaza although where I'll be when I upload this, I don't really know. Although Scarlet has leant me a mobile phone and sorted me out with a local Sim card, the phone predates Twitter and blogs and, roaming charges being what they are (ie, legalised usery) I'm enjoying being largely out of touch.

It's a treat, to be honest. Since Little 'Un was born, nearly 12 years ago? And probable since before even then, whatever mobile, PDA or smartphone I've owned has been constantly on. This has been mostly a "just in case" kind of thing - I can count on the fingers of one thumb the number of times I've received an emergency call and many times it's only served to remind me how much whichever unsuitable woman I was dating at the time didn't want to contact me.

But I digress. What I meant to say is that it's actually rather pleasant to be out of touch. Instead of being bombarded with Twitter and Facebook updates, emails or texts or Whatsapp messages, instead of looking for distractions on Zite or Pulse, now I just... think, muse, daydream, woolgather, whatever. I even deliberately left my headphones at home today, so I don't have the option of listening to my iPod.

I'm not being a luddite about this - i love technology and all the rest of it. I'm not calling for a return to the days of Morse code and carrier pigeons. I love what modern technology does for us. I rediscovered one of my closest friends, on the other side if the world, thanks to Facebook. I've met some wonderful people, thanks to Twitter. But sometimes, I think it's good to just switch off for a while.

You may say that you're far too important to be out of touch in this way and who am I to argue? Perhaps that's the case; perhaps you - like people of equivalent stature such as the President of the USA - have to be contactable every single minute of every single day. But if not, try it for an hour. Switch off and just... do whatever: pay attention to what's going on around you; pay attention to your thoughts and feelings; pay attention to the people around you - hell, pay attention to the TV! Just switch off and be incommunicado for a bit.