As the latest iPhone hits the streets, we should reflect on the hold the mobile phone has taken over all our lives, not just private but professional. Today a walk through the City is a swerving slalom of avoiding collisions with smartphone entranced citizens oblivious to a raging world around them. Even in our moments of relative rest, we suffer the Twitter twitch, Facebook fidget or email exclusion anxiety. Emails never sleep, and we are expected to be able to respond with real-time alacrity. How did we get to this?

As the sun set over the 1980s and computers raised their flashing heads, Lotus 123 or WordPerfect offered technophiles unbounded opportunities to produce their own documents, cut free from the bonds of carbon paper, Tipex and the fury of the copy-typist. As the 1990s got underway, the banking road warriors were offered exciting new devices - clunky mobile phones and chunky diary/ contact devices appearing under the mystical brand of Psion. We strode the globe with pockets on our misshapen jackets loaded with Psions and Nokia mobiles. The technologists soon offered a singly clunky device as Psion combined its database with the mobile, allowing an army of bankers to arm themselves with heavy little gizmos that would hang even more awkwardly in a pocket or sit smartly on a desk in place of fat rolodexes and wired-in phones.