Conferences certainly get the audiences they deserve. Take the wholesale carrier market meeting, the biannual gathering of telecommunications operators and service providers which was held in Dublin at the RDS last week. A high-powered and intelligent array of speakers were interrupted on average every three minutes by that scourge of the modern communications age, the digital phone. How foolish to assume that just because the international audience all were involved in the telecommunications industry, they would have the good manners either to turn their phones off during sessions, or - since they were supposed to be in the vanguard of the industry - buy a phone that vibrates rather than rings.

To add to the graceless cacophony, delegates seemed unable to have a phone with a simple ring. Instead, the audience and speakers were subjected to ridiculously electronified versions of Beethoven, Mozart and even that old favourite, "Pop Goes the Weasel". Overall, one was left wondering what could possibly be so important that attendees needed to receive calls and disrupt speakers and audience members actually trying to listen to a conference they'd paid good money to attend. Or maybe it's just an industry with higher-than-average rudeness. It's not always good to talk.