THINGS you can do in 82 minutes: play the Beatles' White Album from start to finish (including Revolution No 9 which, if you don't mind me saying so, was just about the worst thing they ever recorded apart, maybe, from Ringo singing Act Naturally and George when he was in sitar mode); fly from Glasgow to London on the Shuttle (providing, of course, you don't have to circle Heathrow for ages because there are six other aircraft stacked up in front of you which, again if you don't mind me saying so, is increasingly becoming the norm); have sex (sorry, tell a lie - that's 82 seconds); watch a rugby match (or so I'm told but couldn't swear to it because, on the odd occasion I've been to one, I've always ended up leaving early for the pub on account of the fact that it's a really boring game and not a bit like proper football).
So what, you might well ask, is the significance of 82 minutes? Well, curiously enough, that is exactly how long my daughter was on the dog-and-bone to her boyfriend the other week. I know this - precisely - because it says so on my telephone bill, a document which does not make for easy reading. At least, not for my
16-year-old, it doesn't. Needless to say, we've had words; a frank exchange of views. This happens from time to time in our house. It starts with me reading the riot act and her taking the huff. It usually ends with me feeling guilty and apologising just for being a dad. The phrase ''she's got you wrapped around her little finger'' somehow springs to mind.
But not this time. Because, even as I write this, the dear child is engaged in a variety of menial household chores in a vain bid to
(a) pay off her telephone debt, and (b) ingratiate herself back in to my good books in time for Christmas. For which, by the way, she has asked Santa to bring her - surprise, surprise - a mobile phone.
Now, regular readers of this column (there are three of them and we're on first-name terms) will be aware of my aversion to these infernal devices. However, in my daughter's case, I am willing to make an exception.
To be honest, the 82-minute phone call doesn't bother me that much, money-wise. It was after six o'clock and it was dead cheap. But the sheer effort of chatting to someone (even your boyfriend) for one hour and 22 minutes fair beggars belief. I mean, we are talking about non-stop,
wall-to-wall, conversation, for goodness sake!
I hate to say it (because it makes me sound like a boring old fart) but it wasn't like this in my day. When I was a teenager, I wasn't allowed to phone my girlfriend up and chat for hours on end. This, of course, may not be entirely unconnected with the fact that I didn't have a girlfriend at the time. This, in turn, may not be unconnected with the fact that I was fat, obnoxious, immature, and had bad breath and spots. The spots have more or less gone, by the way.
Actually, the only girl I knew as a teenager was a very distant cousin who lived in Broughty Ferry and who, on the odd occasion I called her, always seemed to be too busy to come to the phone. For some reason, I never got beyond Sylvia's mum (there's a joke in there for Dr Hook fans).
However, on the subject of telephones, there is a serious point to be made here about the teenagers of today. And it is this: as we prepare to enter the next Millennium, I detect a worrying trend developing among our youngsters. There appears to be a complete breakdown of communications in both the classroom and in the playground. Children, it seems, are simply not talking to each other.
They are clearly going through each day in blissful speechlessness. They go to school together, get taught together, eat lunch together, and return home together - and not a word is spoken between them. A strict code of silence, similar to the Sicilian Mafia's omerta, exists, apparently. And it is only broken when they reach the sanctity of their own house.
You don't believe me? Well, how else can you explain the fact that, within five minutes of my daughter stepping in through the front door (it would be even sooner were it not for the fact that she has first to kick her shoes off, leave them in the centre of the living room - perfectly positioned for the rest of the family to trip over, of course - and drop her schoolbag on the sofa where, unless someone else moves it, it will lie until the following morning), she picks up the phone and calls all her pals (yes, the ones with whom she's spent the past eight hours) and talks until teatime about the day's events?
And, apart from a 30-minute break for sustenance and that night's episode of Neighbours, on the phone she stays pretty much until bedtime. Which brings me round to the worst words a man can hear when he calls home to say he's going to be a little late at the office (which, as all wives know, actually means that he's going to the pub). And what are those words? Repeated like a mantra by a disconnected female voice, they are: ''The other person knows you are waiting; please hold the line.''
And, like a fool, hold the line you do. Until such times as you realise that, once again, you are being completely and deliberately ignored. Sometimes for as long as 82 minutes.
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