January 16, 2007 at 11:14 pm · Authored by Ewan · Filed under Devices

I am moving into London, by the way. I’ve had enough of the provincial lifestyle for a little while.

I was sat this evening in Caffe Uno on the High Street where, on account of the odd liberal tip bestowed by this ‘ere blogger, the service is absolutely phenomenal. Nearby my usual table* was a group of four 45ish year old women who’d ‘escaped from their husbands’ for the evening (their words to the smiling head waiter).

Now and again, the restaurant shook with the reverberations of high pitched laughter — shrieks and screams, elevated in volume by at least 35% by the bottles of wine.

I glanced over at their table a few times and spotted that they were all holding handsets. Interestingly one or two were texting more or less continuously. Goodness knows who they are texting at 9pm at night when they’re meant to be sat eating. There was a constant beeeeeep-beeeeeeep from one of their Nokias together with one of those baby-laughter ringtones used for text messages. I counted two Nokias, one Samsung and one Sony Ericsson.

The restautant was perhaps 40% populated.

Now, half way through my Americana pizza, I glanced at my E61 to see that the screen was lit and there was a notice on screen:

Do you wish to receive image from W300?

At this point there was a detectable increase in the audible excitement level from the 45-year-old table, eyes darting nervously around the restaurant to see anyone looking at their handset.

I quickly pressed REJECT and resumed eating my Pizza.

What were they sending, I wonder?

5 minutes later, egged on by her counterpart, the lady with the Sony Ericsson tried sending my handset the picture again. They didn’t connect my handset with me though, I don’t think. In fact I reckon they thought they were Bluejacking two guys sat far on the other side of the restaurant who kept on looking at their handsets.

Goodness knows what they were sending.

I should, I suppose, have pressed ‘accept’ and reported to you, dear reader, what type of images these mature ladies were sending around the restaurant.

I used the term ‘bluejacked’ here because it sounds rather cool. In fact, all they’d done is try to send my handset a picture. Not quite the right terminology I think.

What’s quite interesting is that these 45 year olds (they looked about that, anyway) were totally happy and au fait with their handsets and the bluetooth medium so much so that they’d turned it into a tool of excitement.

Fleetingly, I thought of sending them that video I mentioned last week that Tom sent me…. although if they’d been trying to send me a picture of a dog or something, that video may well have put them off their cheesecake. So I didn’t.

When was the last time someone tried to send you something unannounced to your handset via bluetooth — and did you accept it?

* You know you need to move back into London when you have a ‘usual’ table at Caffe Uno. Perfectly fine place, just, not quite fast cars or private jets.