London Calling

May 15 2000

It's my first day back in London, and I'm very excited. I stick out my hand and instantly a smart black Hackney Carriage pulls up in a stylishly abrupt manner.

"Where to, guv'ner?"

"Myhotel, please."

"Come again?"

"It's my hotel. It's got a stupid name: It's called Myhotel. One word. Myhotel. It's a pain because everyone thinks you're saying that you actually own the hotel, which I don't. It's on Bedford Square."

"I see," he says dryly.

"And is it your hotel?"

"Today it is."

We get there. The bellman smiles, turns off his cell phone and carries in my bags. I check in and retire to the lobby bar. It's good to be back among my people: alcoholics. And the Englishman next to me is shouting into his cell phone and my ear.

"No, no, no, I can find smart money. I've got that. I need dumb money, ten big ones from some French luggage manufacturer or German real estate developer who doesn't know his arse from his elbow ..."

I shift uneasily in my wonderfully designed chair, feeling embarrassed for my former countrymen. I turn to face the table behind me to find three young men in sharp suits discussing their Net play. "So we let people order their replacement cell phone batteries online! Of course, we need partners to handle the production of the Web site, and sort out the marketing, advertising, distribution and fulfillment, but it should be an amazing service!"

Just then a cell phone rings and they all lunge suddenly for their phones, wrestling with their coat pockets, slapping their trouser legs, tearing apart the velcro flaps of their bags and frantically pushing aside napkins and menus and plates. Another phone goes off and the whole place erupts. A waiter drops a tray of drinks as he tries to get at the pager on his belt, and pretty soon the entire bar is clawing for its mobiles and braying loudly. I feel left out because I don't have a cell phone yet. I resolve to go out and get one straight away.

I walk down Oxford Street and come to a store run by Orange, the mobile-phone company. I find a reassuringly spotty, badly dressed teenager and explain my exhaustive cell-phone requirements.

"Hello. I've just arrived from the United States, and I'd like a European tri-band Ericsson or Nokia mobile phone, preferably the Nokia, with global roaming so that I can use it in the U.K., continental Europe and North America as I'm going to be making a lot of very important business trips. I'd like something that can handle the Wireless Application Protocol - to support a new generation of e-commerce applications based on location-based information services - as I need to be able to find out the location of the nearest Starbucks or Virgin Megastore simply by pecking on a few keys. And I'd prefer something in black, rather than orange, because I think the whole orange thing is really old now, except for Bruce Willis' vest in The Fifth Element, which was sort of cool, especially for him, even though that film was pretty derivative of the whole Blade Runner shtick."

Y'know, people go on about jet lag, but I'm feeling totally lucid and fresh. I give him a big smile, so he knows he's dealing with a reasonable man.

"You can only get one tri-band now, sir: the Motorola, sir, from America, sir. It's a bit - pricey, sir."

"I'll take it." I bet he doesn't deal with high-rollers like me every day.

He produces a blue plastic clipboard and a Biro.

"Very well, sir. Your address, sir?"

"Myhotel."

"Come again, sir?"

"It's a hotel on Bedford Square."

"I see, sir. Am I right in thinking that you have no fixed abode right now, sir?"

"Well, I'm looking for a place."

He raises his eyebrows.

"I shall need to see evidence of three month's utilities, sir: gas bills, electricity bills, telephone bills, that sort of thing."

Now I'm getting mad. "Look, I told you, I just got off the plane, I don't have any of those things."

He gently replaces the Motorola TimePort tri-band into its snug box.

"I'm sorry, sir. There's nothing I can do."

"But I have money! I need a phone! I have to be in Barcelona next week!"

"Well, sir, we could do something much more simple.

"Pay as you go, sir. No deposit, just top it up off your credit card. Very popular with young people and the, uh, students, sir."

I slink out with a sad little Nokia 402. It doesn't even have a vibration mode and it works only in England, but it'll do.