It was a beautiful day at the beach--blue sky, gentle wind, calm sea.I knew these things because a man sitting five feet from me was shouting them into his mobile phone, like a play-by-play announcer  . "IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY," he shouted."THE SKY IS BLUE, AND THERE'S A GENTLE WIND, AND THE WATER IS CALM, AND..." Behind me, a woman, her mobile phone pressed to her ear was walking back and forth. "She DIDN'T," she was saying."No.She DIDN'T.She DID? Really? Are you SERIOUS? She did NOT.She DID? No she..." And so on.This woman had two children, who were playing in the sea.I found myself watching them, because the woman surely was not.A huge squid could have caught and snatched the children, and this woman would not have noticed.Or, if she had noticed, she'd have said, "Listen.I have to go, because a huge squid just......No! She didn't ! She DID? No! She......" And next to me, the play-by-play man would have said: "...AND A HUGE SQUID JUST ATE TWO CHILDREN, AND I'M GETTING A LITTLE SUNBURNED, AND ..." It used to be that the major trouble at the beach was the fellow who brought a boom box   and turned it up so loud that the bass notes caused seagulls to explode.But at least you knew where these fellows were; you never know which beachgoers have mobile phones.You'll settle next to what appears to be a sleeping sunbather, or even (you hope) a _ , and you'll lie happily on your towel, and you'll get all the way to the second sentence of your 467-page book before you fall asleep to the hypnotic surge of the surf  , and ... BREEP! BREEP! The corpse sits up, feels urgently for its mobile phone, and shouts "Hello! I'm at the beach! Yes! It's nice! Very peaceful! What? She did? No, she didn't! She DID? No, she..." Loud mobile-phoners never seem to get urgent calls.Just once, I'd like to hear one of them say, "Hello? Yes, this is Dr.Johnson.Oh, Dr.Smith.You've opened the abdominal cavity  ? Good! Now the appendix should be right under the ... What? No, that's the liver.Don't take THAT out, ha ha! Oh, you did? My God! OK, now listen carefully..." In the past the fellow who brought a boom box  _  .
turned it up to make the seagulls happy turned it up to cause the seagulls to explode might cause less trouble than the beachgoers with mobile phones might cause more trouble than the beachgoers with mobile phones