I have mentioned [once or twice] my bemusement at the “selfie” phenomenon.

One aspect that puzzles me immensely is the compulsion some women have to pucker their lips when taking that photograph.  Why?  It is an extremely unflattering pose and frankly they just make me think of dogs’ arseholes.

What a lot of women don’t seem to realise is that said photograph may be used in a context that they obviously can’t foresee.  If a woman goes missing or is murdered or whatever, the newspapers are going to want a recent photograph, and occasionally I have seen dogs’ arseholes staring at me under some headline along the lines of “Have you seen this woman?”.   Not very flattering, as my mind wanders to dogs’ alimentary tracts.

I see the death toll from selfies is rising.  Someone did a study [of course] and came up with the rather startling conclusion that in recent years 259 people have died from them, presumably walking backwards off a height for that “perfect selfie”. That doesn’t take into account the numbers who have walked onto busy streets while staring at their precious implement.

To put that figure in context, that is roughly 259 more than have died from the effects of passive smoke over the same period?  We have seen the worldwide panic over the imaginary dangers of second hand smoke yet there hasn’t been a whisper about smartphones?

They must be banned.