Just went on a St John first aid course. And just to show you that you’d be in perfectly good hands if you collapsed in the street in front of me, here’s an ever so slightly modified version of their drill.
Just remember the letters: LCPAH. (It makes it easier if you think of a high-end MacIntosh owner being offered an inferior model: "LC? Pah!")
L – stands for Look away. Try and ignore the person who has just collapsed.
C – stands for Check if you’ve got time to administer first aid and then get to your appointment on time.
P – stands for Panic, when you see how bad the person looks.
A – stands for Ambulance. Because they can deal with the problem much better than you can.
H – stands for Hero. Which is what you’ll be if you can ignore this drill and do something useful instead.
I’ve mentioned before that I have a mobile phone. Alas, I have so far come across no accidents, where I would have the chance to ring for help and thus justify to the world my need for having it. Especially as hardly anyone ever calls me. And I’m not a real estate agent or a property tycoon, so I can’t use it to point at buildings I’ve bought.
The phone companies would have us believe that Australia has just about the largest percentage of mobile phones in the world. Yep, coming up to 2 million phones. For about 17 million people. Heck, I know I wanted to buy mine so as not to miss out on being at least semi-fashionable.
Phones have different rings. But not different enough. Whenever one rings, no matter how distinctive it sounds, everyone with a phone feels for theirs to check. One way around this is the vibrating phone. That’s right folks, the vibrating
phone.
The phone being constantly at your side has its price. I mean apart from a $30 a month connection fee. True story: I get up from my desk, saunter towards the toilets, trying not to look too urgent. Go in. Walk up to the urinals. Undo zipper. Just about to whop it out and take care of business, when *RING* *RING*. One second later, and either I’d have got wet shoes, or someone would have not got an answer. I hope I’d have plumbed for the latter.
You have to be polite with your phone. For instance, making sure it doesn’t go off in restaurants. I mean more your cultured location, of course, rather than McDonalds – who the hell cares if a phone goes off in McDonalds?! It helps drown out the Musak and squawking teenagers. But the real thing to watch for is breaking the new Communications laws. A new amendment, just passed, states that: "It shall be illegal for anyone to knowingly and willingly make gratuitous use of a mobile communications device before a large number of people, with intent to look cool or impress."
But with mobile phones becoming so popular, nowadays as I walk down the street, I try to spot who could be "carrying". Not everyone wears their Poserphone on their belt. The people with those vibrating phones tend to leave them in their pockets; for that cheap thrill when someone calls. A new angle on telephone sex.
