Viva Brighton Issue #69 November 2018

COLUMN
.........................
Lizzie Enfield
Notes from North Village
Illustration by Joda (@joda_art)
“Goodbye Chloe Banks,” I say, as I leave the café,
doing something I have always wanted to do but
never before had the nerve.
She looks over her shoulder, a little mystified, and
her expression says ‘do I know you?’
She doesn’t but I know her name from her Wi-Fi
hotspot.
It always makes me feel a little Sherlock
the way they come up: Ian0345’s phone,
Rachel1992’s phone – or often more playful
variations: chattycassie’s phone, shazzathedazzler,
jackthehack etc.
You can learn a lot about people just by sitting
near them in cafés and on trains and on this
occasion I learn that the young woman sitting
opposite me, busily checking her Instagram
feed, is none other than Chloe Banks (not her
real name).
For years I have given nothing away in return,
retaining an air of mystery by being the person
whose Nokia brick phone barely allows internet
access.
I’ve had my reasons: being a luddite, being rooted
in the past, not liking change, not liking change
for the sake of it, liking the fact the battery on
the brick lasted about two weeks, liking the fact
that the only contact people can make when I am
out is by text or phone (and that’s enough), not
wanting to become the sort of person who sits in
a café checking their Instagram feed or posting
every moment of their life.
But there’s been pressure from lots of different
directions: my phone provider, family, friends,
publisher, and agent…
I think it was my publisher’s assistant who
laughed so much when I produced said Nokia
that I started to think about it. And a lot of press
trips this year where I began to realise it would
make sense when travelling hand luggage only,
not to be carrying a laptop, camera, phone, iPod
and kindle but just one phone that could do
everything and fit in my pocket.
So, I made the leap, bought an old iPhone off
eBay, took it away on a trip somewhere, had to
admit I found it quite useful having all those
functions in my pocket but switched the sim back
to my trusted brick on my return.
Then the next trip came around and I switched
the sim a few days before leaving and left it in
a few days after my return. One thing led to
another and now I appear to be a fully-fledged
card-carrying member of the iPhone community
– albeit one who is still a bit slow to get to grips
with it.
“Why does my phone come up as your iPod?” I
ask my son, as I plug it into my computer.
“You just need to rename it,” he replies.
That’s easy for him to say. I enlist his help.
He sorts it.
My phone no longer claims to be son’s iPod; it is
clearly labeled “Old Woman!”
Now, whenever I am on a train or in a café,
everyone will know….
....37....