Last week I sneaked off on the bike for a few days to France and finally got to ride some of the great mountains of the Pyrennees. I managed to get up Tourmalet and Hautacam and did some work on my tan (OK just my knees really).
As a self-employed consultant I really didn't have much choice except to tale my trusty MacBook - a move which I'd expected to raise some eyebrows at the B&B. Maybe Hazel and Peter were too polite to say anything when I got back from my rides and scampered into my room to work on some things.
But it did strike me that nowadays we're always expected to be close to our communications - the fact that you're out of range of a wifi signal or even have bad phone reception is in itself a reason for panic.
Funnily enough I actually found that Twitter via my phone was the ideal way to tell my family how I was doing - but I bet the evening phone call was probably enough for them.
This urge to communicate is a bit like the urge for humans to move around - road planners have said for years that new roads don't reduce congestion, they simply encourage us to drive more. It seems to be the case with technology that the more kit we have the more noise we make... not that many people are all that interested.
Liam
