There are only two things I really, really like about my mobile phone. There are lots of things I don't like about it - the Motorola Timeport 250 has confusing menus, inconsistent rules regarding punctuation etc, and knobbly keys that hurt your fingers. But it does have:

Voicenotes: Record up to three minutes of a conversation. Let's say someone is giving you directions. No need to scribble them down and then have to pore over them when you near your destination. Simply record them telling you where to go, and play it back later. Or, better still, amaze your fellow bloggers with your feats of memory by being able to transcribe word-for-word the lyrics from the show you saw last night.

Or, better still, record yourself singing when drunk. Or, much much better, record your boyfriend singing Diana Ross records when he is drunk, and threaten to play it back to your friends.

Alarm clock: The Timeport allows you to set up to five different alarms, on different days of the week. My alarm goes off on weekdays at 8:00am, then again at 8:08am, and finally at 8:20am. OK, look, I know that by then some of you have been up for hours, having taken the dog for a run and then completing seventeen circuits [whatever they are] at the gym, but not me.

The first alarm is meant to half-rouse me from my slumber, but I can ignore it as I know it's going to ring again. I really should get up when the second alarm rings, but, on the morning after a rough night out - or the morning after the morning after - I can still sleep through it till the third one. That's the theory, anyway. Something has gone wrong with the damned thing - it only rings once. I overslept last Monday, and I did the same again today.

I heard it ring this morning, but immediately went back to sleep, knowing it would ring again. Wrong! When I eventually did surface, I lay in the darkness for a while, thinking, "I have no idea what time it is, but it's obviously not yet 8:20". Wrong! Try 9:45. Oops.