Blackberrys are anti-social menaces

The ultimate executive toy is beginning to interrupt social intercourse due to RIM interruptus.

You've probably seen it yourself. You're chatting away to someone and they suddenly get a strange look in their eyes and reach for their heart. But no, they're not having a heart attack - the thing is fibrillating in their shirt pocket and they just have to see the latest spam that's turned up on their device.

We saw two examples just this week. In the first, a student was sitting in class when she let her Blackberry overrule respect for a teacher gamely trying to conduct a lesson. That would have earned us six of the best if PDAs had been around during the days of slates, chalk and the abacus.

Last night in a hostelry in the heart of London's throbbing West End we were having a quiet chat with this very senior and usually very well behaved executive who suddenly plunged his hand into his pocket as if he'd realised a wasp was stinging him. The usual pleasantries of social intercourse were ditched and he stopped listening or talking and just gazed at the screen with a glum look on his face.

How rude! µ