Waiting...it's the waiting...

Waiting, or no waiting?

Part of my medical appointment phobia has to be waiting room related. Deconstructing the problem, I'm ok with rooms in general. Kitchens (I know my place, your Ma'am-nesses – BLISS and DLL, I'm talking to you two), sitting rooms, studies...so it can't be the room that's the issue, it has to be the waiting. Yet waiting should've evolved. Waiting used to mean sitting around interminably with a copy of Country Life or some other magazine you'd never read to pass the time. Now there's ebook readers and ipods and tablet pcs, there should be no need for the boredom, the feeling of life's grains of sand falling aimlessly through your fingers. But the places haven't changed. “Take a seat and wait” still sends a shiver through the marrow.

With the mobile devices available, there's no need to wait at all. All it would take is a text message:

• 17:25 Cannon Street service now expected at 18:48 (wouldn't that be nice, and useful, and something to show for the 3% fare increase? I saw the headline “Commuter Groups Incensed by Fare Increase” and thought “it must be early January”...(cliché alert) you could set your clock...)

• Nurse running ten minutes late. Doctor running fifteen minutes late. Dentist off sick today.

• Cab driver will be with you soon, he's just stopped for twenty Bensons and a can of Red Bull.

Then, once in the waiting zone for a shorter, better managed wait, calling your name out isn't the way to go in the iPod age. You can't hear your name called, or station announcements, with ear-buds in. There has to be better visual information, copied to computers and phones, unless the people behind waiting rooms consider themselves immune to progress.

Pink

Cricket and breast cancer. Sidney test match. Sport shows class again (don't see the house of commons changing the seats to pink leather for the week):

• England change the blue flash on their collars to pink.
• The Aussies change their green flash too.
• Pink stumps.
• Umpires have pink sash bands on their hats.
• Sponsor's logos change to pink.

Tomorrow is the full-on pink day when the crowd join in too. 40,000-odd people.

Even the teams' caps get replaced for the day...