My knob has fallen off. Still fairly sure we were fully populated in the kid schema so nothing to be too alarmed about. Mildly embarrassing in the showers but the English are generally good about ignoring such things or dismissing the subject with a breezy ah knob fallen off eh? Never mind lovely weather we’re having“

Okay, it fell off my dumbphone. That’s the official line although there may be a few witnesses to a slightly more violent version. They’ve all been well paid for their silence, so suffice it to say that my communications device has suffered electronic castration and now lies broken and battered in the depths of my desk drawer.

You see without the thumb numbing jog-wheel, you cannot access any of the features, however even before this eunuch conversion, the bloody thing had already forsaken some of it’s more advanced functionality “ to whit making and receiving calls. It combines that fearsome combination of slow and stupid with anything useful like trying to find someone’s number hidden behind a few hundred key presses and the world’s slowest screen refresh.

If the marketing men had gone with the slogan it’s really shit and every day it’ll piss you off in some new and innovative way BUT occasionally it may grant you access to email they could have avoided the charge of telling great big bloody whoppers when describing it as a handheld PDA with the functionality of a PC. Assuming the PC had been badly savaged by a hungry bear, ignited with rocket fuel and put out with a fire hose.

Still it did give me license to trader hilarious knob gags with the helpdesk. If I get fired, it’s the way I would want to go because in what other vocational situation can you ring up a complete stranger and ask can you help me, my knob’s dropped off?

Sadly, I think they’re going to give me another one. And it’s going to look suspicious if this was suffers similar deceleration trauma as the much maligned craphoneâ„¢ currently being converted to compost in my recycling desk drawer.

Can we still do Telex? Tin cans and some string? Shouting at people? There’s really got to be a better solution.