OUCH! I did touch a sore point with my pleas for less technology and more practicality the other week - and I didn't even mention that some new plasma screens aren't suitable for high definition TV and that pending changes to DVDs could make your new player obsolete before too long.

If your comments are representative, there is certainly a market for a rock-bottom basic mobile phone which does no more than deal with calls and text messages.

In fact, I suggest that a phone which offers only the "sms" (short message service) would be useful. Only days after I'd written my piece there was serious concern about the health of young children using mobiles and, if all they could do was text, the phone would still serve its purpose of telling mum where they were or cadging a lift, without risking more than sprained thumbs.

As a parent, albeit of a grown up, I actually feel a text is less intrusive than a call, if all I want to communicate is some mum-type worry about her travel arrangements or state of health without intruding on what she's doing at the time.

Techno-hate isn't limited to phones, however, and led on to tales of the hassle of getting stuff repaired. Days before Christmas one reader (or rather a listener as she hears these pieces on her talking newspaper) heard a horribly familiar sound from the kitchen. The crunkling crash of her not-very-old double-glazed oven door shattering. For the third time. Once under guarantee, once just out of it and this third time with the annual cookfest looming.

Yes, it could be repaired before Christmas, but at an extra cost. Whether that's extortion, blackmail or simply a good rip-off, she paid up, of course.

That same listener, tied into a service (though that's hardly the word) contract, has been waiting months for a new diverter valve for her central heating, so can't operate radiators and hot water independently. We didn't have problems like that with coal fires and back boilers; comfort comes at the cost of annoyance.

So does another modern gizmo, the electricity consumer unit with trip switches. Goodbye to fuse wire, I thought, when ours was fitted, then a bulb blew and plunged the whole house into darkness. I assumed the unit was at fault until friends said no, that was quite normal. Oh well, if I keep our large, heavy torch at hand in case of sudden darkness while I'm reading in bed, it won't count as premeditation if I'm burgled, will it, officer?