As if somehow sensing telepathically that I am mobile phoneless and without work, my father telephoned to gloat about having both.

My phone and my work both disappeared simultaneously while enjoying day at the beach with rug rats.

Nice day interrupted by call from editor of Sunday magazine wanting to discuss idea I had sent her.

Keen not to lose fairly lucrative and prestigious commission, I decided to fork out for temporary emergency childcare in form of four consecutive rides on the carousel so that I could have at least 20 minutes in which to hold reasonably intelligent conversation.

Unfortunately, just as I appeared to be making some headway with the above, a man on in-line skates, sped past, snatched the phone and disappeared before I could even contemplate removing offspring from circling horses and going after him.

To add insult to injury, phone thief apparently continued conversation I had begun with editor, managed to impress her with some ideas of his own and, by time I had returned home and phoned her back, she was only lukewarm about my idea and apparently pursuing some of those he had raised with her.

Put my landline phone down somewhat dispirited only to have it ring the second it touched base. I picked it up just in time to hear the chipper voice of elderly father saying: "I'm calling you from a rock festival on my mobile phone . . . " and then the line went dead.

Given that my father spent most of his adult life trying to give the impression he was about 20 years older than he actually was (his attempts have been aided by rapid hair loss, total ignorance of any type of music composed after the end of the 17th Century and complete inability to get to grips with any form of modern technology), the above one liner seemed highly unlikely.

However, further explanation, which I expected in the form of another call, was not immediately forthcoming, leaving me a good hour in which ponder why, having worked so hard for the past 50 years to give the impression he was already drawing his pension, he was now trying to reverse the inevitable ageing process by attending rock festivals with a mobile phone.

Eventually he called back, explaining he had been asked by a newspaper to give an aged person's perspective on summer rock festivals. His perspective was that it was rather like doing national service - lots of tents, lots of mud, lots of noise (made by bands rather than ammunition) but dissimilar in the fact that festival attendees were a scruffy lot, who had not heard of barbers or mastered the art of shaving in tooth mug within tent.

Said newspaper had given him a mobile phone for duration of his stay so he could file copy.

The purpose of his initial call had been to demonstrate how, during the course of his two-day stay at said festival, he had become a bit of an expert in the field of mobile phone technology and was now fully adept at wandering around a big field (to find a good signal area) and carrying on a conversation at the same time.

Sadly for the old man, the purpose of his second call was to explain that having uttered a single sentence he had somehow managed to press the wrong button, cutting us off and had been unable to get the phone going again until, aided by a "David Seaman lookalike with a pony tail", he had managed to unlock the keypad, switch the phone on again and call back . . .