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Mobiles
Welcome to this month’s newsletter
from the Southampton and District Rail Users Mobile Telephone
Abatement Society.
This edition contains a report from Mavis
Treadbetter on her success at eliminating target twenty-seven
from the eight thirty-two to Waterloo. This target made
persistent calls on that journey until Mavis produced the
Complete Works of Shakespeare from her bag and recited the Bard
at similar volume. Her request to the target to speak more
quietly on the phone as it was spoiling her rendition of the
final act of Hamlet, appears to have been the decisive move.
An innovative approach is described this
month by Timothy Western who feigned symptoms of a schizophrenic
illness by replying aloud to imagined voices in his head. The use
of his line ‘Yes Master Lucifer, I will
disembowel all mobile phone users.’ was, surely, the stroke
of genius which led to the departure of target forty-four from
the twelve twenty-one to Basingstoke.
Hilary Prichard recounts excellent use of
her experience in the Southampton Amateur Operatic Society. She
writes of sitting near targets and singing short repetitious
sections of popular classical tunes while endlessly rummaging in
her handbag as if unsuccessfully seeking a mobile telephone.
Such individual victories have greatly
progressed our Society towards its objective of ridding the rail
network of individual mobile phone users. John Hodgson, however,
reminds us of the need for other methods when several targets
occupy the same carriage. His strategy on the nine thirty-eight
to Winchester also afforded an excellent rehearsal opportunity
for him and twenty fellow members of the Eastleigh Male Voice
Choir.
Marjorie Hillier reminds us not to overlook
our four-legged friends. Jasper and Rufus, her two rottweillers,
frequently accompany her on journeys to the Capital. She writes
of picking a seat opposite someone with a mobile phone and then
saying: ‘Excuse me, I must warn you that the dogs go berserk
whenever a mobile phone rings. If yours goes-off, I’ll do my
best to hold them back so you can escape.’
A more direct approach is related by
Jennifer Wright, an attractive young woman who approaches male
targets and enquires in a pleading, but sensual, tone if she
might use their phones. When the device is willingly proffered,
she violently hammers it against any protuberance below knee
height on the nearby seats. She then returns the mess of
shattered plastic and circuitry to its owner, saying in a
grateful and seductive tone ‘Thank you so much. I was so
worried I might snag my tights on that.’
George Harris reports less success by a
team wearing lead-lined coats, discreetly surrounding a target to
block the signal. This was both exhausting for the team and
resulted in the partial collapse of an ageing platform.
Finally in this month’s magazine we
provide a sheet of stickers which read ‘SECURITY ALERT -
PLEASE PLACE ALL MOBILE PHONES IN THIS CONTAINER. THEY WILL BE
RETURNED AT YOUR DESTINATION’. Please affix these at you
local station to as many bins as possible.
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