Tale that will ring true for so many

HOW DID WE BECOME SO OBSESSED WITH OUR MOBILES?

“WHAT would you lot do without your phones?” exclaimed me mam in exasperation post-Sunday dinner as three generations of family sat mutely transfixed in their own little, phone-centred cyber-worlds.

Aye, these little electronic ignorance boxes have certainly changed the very nature of our basic daily behaviours.

What would we do without them? I wonder .... would it be possible to maintain the smartphone-led habits we carry out automatically, indeed unconsciously, without the gizmos themselves?

So let’s imagine the scene, an oldschool Geordie fatha is sitting’ doon for his tea.

It’s his favourite mince and tatties with a cup of tea and some buttered Scottie. As he settles down contentedly, with perhaps half his mind on his post-meal comfy chair and a read of his Chronicle, a stricken look suddenly etches across his craggy features.

“Pet! Pet!” he cries in alarm, “ah can’t start yet”. With a worried look he leaps up from the table and starts rummaging through the drawers of the sideboard.

“Where is it?” he growls, “ah can- eat me meal without it!”

His wife is puzzled. “You can’t eat your meal without what pet?”

“Howay pet,” he retorts. “Whaddaya think ah’m on aboot? me camera of course!”

With a howl of triumph he grabs his plastic Instamatic camera that was last used on his brother’s stag night in Magaluf back in ‘84.

With a deft click and a wind he’s snapped a couple of views of his scran, and as he finally sits down to eat he proudly announces: “Once ah’ve had these bad boys developed doon the chemist ah’ll be showin’ them off to the lads at work and doon the cluuurb.”

Now we leap forward in time to witness the same gadgie strutting towards the aforementioned club with his newly-developed photos of last week’s tea in his hand.

Indeed, he is not content to carry the photos, he is actually doing his utmost to show them off to random passersby. “How mate”, he blurts out to a passing stranger as he thrusts the prints under his nose. “D’ye like it?”

The man ignores him and hurries past, but at that moment a lady he has never met before rushes up and, grinning inanely, wordlessly offers a thumbs-up gesture towards his image of last week’s tea.

He then notices that this lady is carrying a glossy enlarged print of a ginger cat dressed as Stalin, which she is flashing at all and sundry, so he in turn gives her a thumbs-up.

Before he can depart, however, she has thrust an extra copy of her Stalin cat photo print into his hands.

Happily, our gadgie now skips off down the street showing passers-by both the print of his tea and the Soviet dictator’s furry impersonator.

Several people respond with their thumbs up.

There’s one weird and miserable gyet, however, who gives him the thumbs down and into the gadgie’s pocket he secretly stuffs an envelope containing a scrawled insult about the cat, the mince and tatties and a painful physical act involving both.

Oblivious, our hero reaches the club doorway, whereupon a lady unexpectedly blocks his path.

She is showing a photo of herself that is at least a decade out of date and wearing a badge which announces her to be ‘single‘.

Embarrassed, our man goes to sign in and realises the committee man on the door is also carrying a photo of a younger bloke, which isn’t even him.

He is wearing a badge which announces him to be divorced and is passing out photocopies of a joke somebody passed him on the Metro.

“Ah knaa who the lass ootside is waitin’ for,“he chuckles to himself as he hastily scribbles ‘married’ on a beer mat and pins it to his chest. No need to encourage trouble ...

Mike is performing his own special one-hour show, at the Stand Comedy Club in Newcastle on Monday, June 25. Tickets are available at the venue.