At last, mobile users get guide to etiquette

IRRITATED train passengers and restaurants users may say it's about time.

Debrett's has moved into the 21st century with its top 10 tips for telecommunications, mobile phones and emails. Lady Celestria Noel, formerly Jennifer, the diarist on Harpers & Queen, and now author of the Debrett's Guide to the Season, calls it etiquette.

The rules are:

* Switch off your telephone at any social gathering. Lady Celestria has dreadful memories of men who look up sports results at weddings.

Why didn't they think of this when they moved the Epsom Derby from Wednesday to Saturday?

* Be aware that other people can overhear your conversations.

Lady Celestria recalls a Frenchman on the Eurostar to Paris telling his wife he had missed the train home and would be spending another night in London. "He winked at another passenger in a very French manner," she says.

* Don't text with your phone set on loud. Texting, and looking down at your mobile when you should be concentrating on the person you are talking to, is just as bad as talking on the telephone and can be just as annoying.

* Take care when using your mobile in the street - look where you're going.

* Remember the mobile is innocent - you should be in polite control. "You are not in a bubble and the person you are with has priority over anyone who interrupts, whatever their method. Good manners are the talcum powder of society which allows us to rub along together on this overcrowded planet without too much irritation."

* Condolences should never be emailed, "not even for a goldfish, but it can be a good way of cheering people up".

* Be extremely cautious about emailing sensitive information and never end a relationship by email. "Sending sensitive material by email is both unsafe and churlish. Chucking by email, even if you are under 25, should be banned.

However it can be quite fun for flirting."

* Although it's not a letter, try to use correct forms of address.

* Remember the basics: avoid spelling and grammatical errors.

* Finally, always RSVP quickly.

"One way in which emails improve manners is that it is now considered correct form to reply to them quickly but this happens less now that there is so much junk mail and information overload."

Lady Celestria adds: "If we do cause offence, it is we who are at fault, not the gadget. The mobile is a neutral tool. No one needs to sit in a restaurant wondering whether they have been stood up any more and couples on their way to dinner with country friends who have given them vague directions, impossible to follow in the dark, no longer need to come to blows."

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