Kate Middleton and the iPhone 5

I need to finish a piece of work in the next couple of hours. I’m working from home, which means I’m already being disrupted by the ongoing remodelling of our kitchen and the occasional disappearance of mains electricity as part of that process.

Worse still, having no electrical power cuts my internet connection off. Our resident teenager is taking it particularly hard. “It’s like the end of the world”, he says through mouthfuls of sausage roll. Eating is the only offline activity he can think of at the moment.

However, this cloud has a silver lining. Losing my internet connection creates fewer distractions.

Distractions like checking Google for the latest news. It tells me that Kate Middleton and the new iPhone 5 are currently trending. This apparently means they’re both immensely important to many people.

The most obvious difference between the iPhone 5 and Apple’s previous phone is that the updated device has a larger screen. There’s more on display than before, you might say.

The Duchess of Cambridge is in the headlines for a similar reason.

Now, some people have suggested the Duchess shouldn’t have been sunbathing topless in a private garden. They think she should cover herself at all times just in case she’s seen en deshabille by someone who isn’t Prince William. Maybe a thin layer of gold paint would suffice, rather like an Olympic letter box or the unfortunate Jill Masterson in ‘Goldfinger’.

Others say it’s an invasion of privacy, none of our business and is no more in the public interest than hiding a webcam in George Osborne’s bathroom or publishing Hannah Cockroft’s tax return. They say – and I’m in agreement with this group of people – that being famous doesn’t automatically make you a contestant in a ‘reality TV’ competition.

The truth is that neither Kate nor the new iPhone is remotely important in the grand scheme of things. Yes, the bigger issues of security, privacy, technology and communication are worth talking about… but getting excessively excited about a mobile phone and a half-naked woman? Not unless you’re a 14-year-old boy.

If the iPhone 5 offered time-travel, it would be worth discussing at length. If the photos of Kate had revealed the inner workings of a cyborg, newspapers could make a case for publishing them.

But these current reports are only about increasing sales, not about changing the world.

Anyway, that’s why I’m rather pleased the plasterer has switched off the electricity. It means I can get on with my work and not have this kind of trivia on my mind. Which, of course, it isn’t.

Right. Where was I?

First published on vivalewes.com 20th September 2012: http://vivalewes.com/