Why is it that every time you hear that little beep, just for a second, somewhere in the pit of your stomach, you genuinely believe that it might be about to change your life?

You play it down of course, tell yourself, "Bah, it'll just be O2 with another of their useful reminders about special offers they won't give me", try to quell the excitement, but you know that you felt it, fleetingly, that promise that maybe this text will hold the future*.

It's a wrongly-wired reflex reaction, like Pavlov's Dogs or one of the other conditioning experiments in my AS Psychology textbook.

How the inventor of the mobile managed, with the, to evoke such immediate joy I don't know, but they should have won some kind of award for services to human happiness.

I like to think maybe in the dark recesses of time, primitive humans were called to feast on fresh carcasses by the cry of some long-extinct bird that just happened to sound exactly like the Nokia text tone.
Either way, there's nothing like the promise of a flashing screen to brighten up a dull half hour.

I feel quite sorry for previous generations, who won't have experienced anything like our pre-text anticipation – the brrring of a landline phone is, we all know, the complete opposite experience, prompting performance anxiety, dread, and resentment at having to move yourself from the sofa when it won't be for you anyway.

But then at least landlines never deceive you, whereas mobiles like to toy with your emotions.

My dad understands the cruelty; a few weeks ago he sent me the following – "Is there a word for being on a train, hearing the bring of a text received, then checking to find it's not yours? Twice?!

There should be."

It's a fickle grip, the one holding us in the big wide palm of technology (of course the answer might just be to find some more friends and pay them all to text you once every 12 minutes.

But deep down, I think I'd know my joy was artificial).

The power of the phone – or "faux-ne", the term I've coined specially for my despairing pa – was hit home with a particular text I received yesterday.

Off goes the tone in my handbag, off goes the flickering light of hope in my tummy, and then the mind games begin.

"Welcome to Belgium!" it says.

Which would be a lovely sentiment, if I wasn't actually meant to be in Calais.

And then, an hour or so later, back in London so I can go to work. What are Eurostar playing at?

I don't have time for a scenic Belgian detour! Is this even Belgium?

Out of the window are five miles of brown fields.

It certainly looks like it could be Belgium.

Now I come to think of it, that cow looked like a jazz fan.

"Texts are 25p to send and free to receive. Calls to the UK cost 35ppm and 18ppm to receive," which strikes me as less than a bargain considering the calls I'll have to make to find out why in the name of Jean Claude Van Damme I'm suddenly in Belgium.

There ought to be a discount for people in Belgium against their will (though potentially bad for the economy if it applied to actual Belgians).

I don't even need to go to Belgium!

I've been four times, for consecutive summer holidays between 1999 and 2002, which is definitely more Belgium than the average person needs to be exposed to.

I've seen everything in Belgium at least three times.

If anything, I'm using up someone else's quota.

Germany I've never been to – if the phone company have to abduct my train carriage and shift it round the EU for their own amusement, I'd rather they'd have landed me in Germany.

Admittedly the extent of my German is "Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte", but I'm sure one can get by on Black Forest gateau for at least a day and a half.

Come to think of it, HOW am I even in Belgium?

Aren't train tracks straight?

Paris to London, boom.

No room from impromptu jaunts off to Antwerp when the mood takes them.

This is why travelling on your own is a bad idea – there's no one to ask when you think you might be in Belgium.

In future I'll always bring a friend specifically for that purpose.

And waffle sauce, just in case.

Some 90 minutes of mild panic later, my phone goes again.

"Welcome to England!"

But you know, I've been back 24 hours now and I'm still not sure I entirely believe it.

The cows look highly suspicious.

*It won't, it's your flatmate telling you to buy more loo roll.

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