Have you got a message for me?

It was ten years in the planning. Finally, it was the day the government was ready to test its national warning system for mobile phones. I have one of those. I waited for 3pm, my phone in hand, full of anticipation, excited to get my alert. Nothing. Not a beep, not a word. What a shambles. But not exactly a surprise.

But, really, how difficult can this be? I get a message from my network (O2, I gather) whenever I arrive in a new country, welcoming me to France, or Spain, or wherever. If I'm climbing the western fells of the Lake District, I even get a message welcoming me to the Isle of Man. They know my number and know where I am, more or less. It can't be that difficult to send me a message

I wasn't expecting anything fancy. My phone doesn't do fancy. It does text messages, which is surely a perfectly satisfactory way of communicating an important alert. I suspect it's because I don't have the 'right' kind of phone. My phone isn't deemed to be smart enough, therefore I'm deemed not worthy of being alerted to whatever danger it is that the smarter people are being warned about. I'm clearly as dispensable as my device.

Perhaps I'm being oversensitive. It's been a week of feeling pretty shit and also being continually frustrated with technical incompetence. I keep hitting my head against things that simply don't work as they should, things that just stop me in my flow. And it's driving me insane.  

I looked out of the window a little later and saw this pigeon perched outside. Perhaps, because of my antiquated phone, the government had decided to send my alert by even more antiquated means. Alas, it flew off before I had a chance to look.