Travelling businessmen trade the security, community and monotony of an office for a life of constant variety. We probably wouldn’t have it any other way. Just the thought of a nine-to-five commute, water cooler meetings and the same sandwich bar day after day can bring on a cold sweat. As a consequence, those few things that do remain constant surreptitiously infiltrate our existential world.
That small device pressing gently against your ribcage in its currently dormant or flight-safe state is one such companion. From the moment its alarm interrupts a hotel slumber, to the time it lulls us back into unconsciousness with a favourite MP3 track, our mobile phone plays a vital role at every stage of the day. It reinforces the links with loved ones, reveals a good place to eat on a lonely Moscow night and keeps us in touch with the world we left behind at Heathrow.
With most material objects, the young aspire to the chattels of their seniors: a bigger car or home. With phones it is different. Young and old both aspire to the handsets paraded by the first genuine iPod generation, cool twentysomethings with both youth and disposable income. Jeremy Clarkson, the automotive antichrist of the organic-herbal-vegan movement, proudly announced his acquisition of a ‘cracked’ iPhone on that bastion of youth culture, BBC Radio 1, as if lifting his shirt to show off his gang tattoos in a desperate bid to be accepted
in some South American jail.
The UK-based road warrior's status is often defined by the car he drives, but long gone are the days of Silver City and the Bristol Freighter car-carrying aircraft, while a hired Renault Twingo lacks clout in the corporate car park. Continental travellers rely on a tailored suit, a trick laptop and the smart phone.
Continuing the automotive analogy, perhaps the iPhone is the German coupé, where money, style and charisma overrule talent, modesty and practicality. The generic PDA represents the big SUV: industrious, tough, but tedious and chippy. The BlackBerry Pearl is the Jaguar XF, or maybe an Alfa 166, perfect for sparky middle management types but still fun at dinner parties. The non-smart phone user is the Vauxhall Vectra driver. Nuff said.
Whatever the device, few of us would survive a day without it. It’s the one object I would fight a potential mugger for (apart from the children, of course, and the wife, I suppose, but perhaps not the mother-in-law).
A corporate photo op recently epitomised this, where three top salesmen, booted, branded and suited, were pictured defending a free kick alongside some famous footballers. Those in shorts with silly haircuts used their hands to protect their potential. Those in flannel trousers, also with silly haircuts, held their hands over their breast pockets as if the national anthem was being played.
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