SMS

Just at that moment, my own phone beeped. It was a discreet feep set at a volume intended to alert just me, rather than being audible to all fifty people in the pub. Even so, my drinking friends stopped their chat for a moment and looked at me slightly strangely, as if I had erupted in a fanfare of discordant oompah music to the accompaniment of tortured piano accordions and the brisk slapping of lederhosen.

"It's just a text message," I explained, reaching the mobile from my pocket.

My acquaintances looked at each other.

"I didn't realise you actually had a mobile phone," one said, while the other nodded in agreement.

I snorted, a harrumph of good-natured tolerance, or so I'd like to think. My friends shook their heads again and returned to their political conversational topic.

I read the message that had just arrived in silence: "Thirteen year old dad Alfie Patten has joined Fathers for Justice. He doesn't understand the politics but he already has a Spiderman costume."

It was the first joke text message I had ever received.

But who on earth had sent me this? I did not recognise the number, and there was no corresponding name stored in the phone's address book memory. I did not want this kind of interruption, this distraction in my life. Irritated, I swallowed the last of my drink and stood up to leave, making some excuse about a busy day at work tomorrow to cover my confusion and annoyance. I walked back home up the hill to the welcoming blare of Coronation Street on the TV, still fuming.

I soon put the unexpected message out of my mind - although I have come to think back to that evening in the pub with increasing frequency. I have started to get these messages myself, on a regular basis; jokes and anecdotes, usually topical and often witty, each time a different number and always from a number I did not recognise.

These texts rapidly became a kind of low-level annoyance in my life, the kind of irritation best overcome by following the adage grin and bear it. I set the phone's message alert sound level even lower, but I could not bring myself to turn the sound off altogether, just in case there was a genuine emergency at home or work I had to react to immediately. So, ten or twenty times a day, I would find myself distracted from working, or a conversation, or just my own peaceful ruminations, just to delete yet another carefully-punctuated joke message.

Not all of these jokes were topical, of course. Presumably the copywriters still had to produce their quota even when there was nothing particularly troubling going on. "A company has come up with a new medicine for depressed lesbians. It's called Trydixagin." Even so, these messages always seemed to provide a comment on the modern world and our place in it.

When the texts started appearing, I sometimes called the number from which they appeared to come. Invariably, I would get a bland recorded message, or the number would simply be unavailable. No human being ever seemed to be available, or returned my calls. After a certain amount of frustration, I simply gave up trying.

Then, out of the blue, someone called me, this time from a number I - or at least the phone's address book - did recognise. It was someone called Dave who was a colleague at work a year or two ago, a distant acquaintances I rarely spoke to and, to be honest, barely even remember. When Dave called, I was surprised to hear from him although, somehow, less startled by the topic of his conversation.

"This joke message you sent me," he said angrily, "It's a bit tasteless, isn't it?"

I spluttered, then swore blind did not send him a message of any kind. Frankly, he did not believe me, and seemed to be angered more by my denials. I felt I was required to apologise abjectly, even though I am certain I had done nothing, and promise that it would not happen again. Not that I was in a position to ensure that promise, of course, although I have not yet had a return call.

I was forced to the conclusion that, somehow, the senders of these messages had a way of spoofing the "From" phone number. Whoever - or whatever - is creating these messages is capable of fraudulently inserting a fake number to replace the actual originating one.

I found the timeliness of these texts most curious, too. I noted that these mysterious messages offered immediate comment on the news of the day; indeed, they could be construed as defusing the current calamity - whatever today's crisis is: the collapse of further part of the banking system, another war in the Middle East, a 14-year boy becomes a father again.

You may well have noticed the effect yourself, when a major item of news comes close to home, when it strikes the man in the street where he will feel it - in the wallet: in increased interest payments, or threats to savings or pensions, or the imminent re-possession of over-mortgaged homes.

When something like this happens, it's all very tense for a day or two. Then the jokes start to fly, everyone just relaxes and gets on with it. These messages provoke a cathartic physiological reaction, social tensions are purged and released, and life simply gets back to normal.

After a few weeks, I noticed that a few of the jokes referred to events I had no knowledge of. At first, I thought it was because I was failing to keep up with current events. Increasingly curious, I made a conscious effort to read more of the newspapers and the Internet news sites, and watch additional TV reports. Soon, I was convinced that I was getting jokes about an event, an item of news, which had not yet been reported publicly, which had not made it into the online newspapers and the "breaking news" sections of the television reports.

Somehow, it seemed I had managed to get in the first hop of the delivery chain. No doubt, most recipients of these messages got lots of joke texts, from real friends and acquaintances, and simply did not notice that a few extra had been snuck in. But why me? Perhaps it was just some random selection from a trawl of a database of mobile phone numbers, or some automated system algorithmically profiling and selecting likely candidates for receiving messages. Whatever the mechanism, it had been unable to detect my oft-expressed but never recorded dislike of text message jokes.

I am now convinced that these messages are carefully contrived, the result of considerable expert analysis by people with a deep knowledge of applied sociology and practical psychology. These texts are exquisitely designed to influence the psyche of the entire nation, to modify public opinion and private mood, to act as a calming, moderating influence over a large fraction of the population, for those for whom the mobile phone is an essential part of their everyday lives.

I have no doubt the entire process is overseen by some shadowy arm of Government, loosely - and untraceably - linked to Whitehall, and supported by their Establishment chums in the telco companies.

I have finally realised that SMS does not stand for Short Message Service at all. I am absolutely certain that it is really a Social Management System, acting as social glue, or lubrication or perhaps sedative, for the turmoil that is modern life in this country.

It is a system designed to keep us all under control.

Part 1