Phonophobia

I was thinking about phobias the other day. My feeling was that I'm lucky to be harbouring so few. I admit I've a fear of being stuck in a hole as in -

'Crawl through that drainpipe, you horrible man!'
'No way, sarge, can I put my hand in the bag of snakes instead?'

But generally I feel under-resourced in this area. Then today I remembered my biggest phobia of all - a fear of telephones.

It's a strange one, this, as it only affects me at home. I used to be on the phone all the time at work, arranging meetings, sorting out transmission circuits, lining up contributions from outside broadcasts, and the like. No worries. But they were different. It was my job and I'd been trained in the actions I needed to take if it all fell apart. There were plenty of surprises but none I couldn't deal with.

At home, it's a whole new ball game. If the phone rings I jump. Who the hell is it? What do they want? Why are they ringing when I'm eating? And because I don't like answering them, I don't like speaking on them either - ask anyone who's tried to have a conversation with me on one. And it's not just phones. Back in the days when I was a keen radio ham, did I use voice? No, sir, but I was a dab hand on the Morse key, rattling away at 25 words a minute.

What brought this all to mind was Lee's reference to Skype, the free Internet telephone service (now owned by Ebay, one of the most avaricious companies in the world). The question I asked myself was, would this appeal to me as a better communication medium than the conventional phone?

And the answer?

No.

I’d still have to talk to people.

The photograph today is from another recurring theme, backlit gateways (and three's).