Can we not be so txtually depraved, please?

London: I called a friend and got a text back: 'In the loo.'

'Too much detail,' I replied, squirming a little under my own skin. She was some 8,000 miles away. There was no immediate threat to me. And yet, somehow, I felt I had intruded. 'I'll call you back' would have done. A perfectly serviceable sentence, discreet enough to cover everything from a board meeting to a bowel movement.

Naturally, I went looking for data. A 2024 survey commissioned by telephone-answering company Face for Business found that 1 in 6 British phone owners admitted to having answered a call on the toilet. May I withdraw from several conversations I was suspicious about in the past!


I've also been told that office calls taken on mute may be conducted from the loo. This remains unverified. But it has put a rather different complexion on: 'Let's sit down and discuss this.'

How many times have I been earnestly explaining something while the person at the other end was engaged in a far more pressing matter? And when they said, 'Sorry, you're breaking up,' was I? Somewhere along the way, we seem to have confused being available with providing a running commentary. 'Can't talk now' is not a lie. It is a small curtain drawn across your private life. Please leave it closed.

We need some texting manners. A little restraint. If I send you a message, you do not have to reply before I've put the phone down. Equally, if you haven't replied for 20 minutes, I must resist sending '???'.

Video calls have only complicated matters. What is the dress code for being professionally present in your own home? Does the whole body have to attend, or just the parts on the payroll?

I am prepared to accept a smart shirt over pyjama bottoms. The upper half has targets. The lower half has given up. This seems an honest reflection of working life. But anyone attending a meeting without trousers must accept that retrieving a charger could become a career decision.

Of course, people have always read in the loo. The newspaper is practically a bathroom accessory. But it has boundaries. It does not vibrate - yet. It does not tell you your boss was typing. Nobody can ring through the crossword and say, 'Have you got a minute?'

You take the newspaper in to get away from people. You take the phone in and bring 43 of them with you. There you sit with your colleagues, your cousins, the school WhatsApp group and a woman demonstrating how to fold a fitted sheet. It is an extraordinary number of guests for a small downstairs toilet.

And the phone is never finished. There is always another message, another video, another notification suggesting something has happened which, on inspection, has not. You went in to check one text. You emerge knowing how to grout a patio, (particularly useful if you live in the West), what your cousin had for lunch, and that someone you last met in 1998 is 'feeling blessed'.

The newspaper, at least, has a last page. The phone has a charger.

I miss the modest mystery of being unavailable. You rang someone. They weren't there. Perhaps they were out. Perhaps they were in the bath. Perhaps they had looked at the ringing telephone and decided they had suffered enough for one day. You were left to cope with this uncertainty.

Now, if a call goes unanswered, there must be a text explaining why, preferably sent during the very activity that prevented the call.

I don't need to know where you are every moment of the day. I just need to believe you're wearing trousers, a kilt perhaps, or a sari. Even a sarong would do.