There was a time when the telephone, a shaped chunk of plastic with a dial sitting on a kitchen top and connected to the outside world by a copper wire, was a mainstay of family life on a par with the television.

No longer. Now the fixed family telephone line is a nuisance, so much so that I have finally cancelled it for a saving of $30 a month. Admittedly I am slow on the technological uptake these days, but even I had finally realised that all we ever got on the traditional line was sales calls, often from an Indian call centre with the occasional home-grown charity selling raffle tickets thrown in.