Laura Craik on too much technology, pregnancy and fashion show over-access

They’ve put up new mobile phone masts near my house. No, I don’t know who ‘they’ are. Vodafone? BT? The Illuminati? A planning search reveals nothing. It’s like they don’t exist. Only they do. From every window they glare at me, tall and malevolent, quietly making me worry about possible health problems. On the bright side, my reception is a lot better. So maybe it’s okay. Heart palpitations v faster 4G? It’s a tough call.

That’s the thing with phone masts. Everyone wants superfast service, but no one wants them near their house. 5G is set to be rolled out in 2020, requiring more masts than ever. You can’t stop progress. Only sometimes, don’t you wish you could? Don’t you wish someone would give you their undivided attention again? No wonder people get dogs. Please, don’t anyone ever invent tech for animals.

I’ve already lost my elder daughter to the iHole. Amid all the angst about Instagram potentially increasing levels of anxiety, depression and FOMO, my daughter and her friends give me tentative hope. Sometimes, I think their judgement is better than their millennial predecessors. They mitigate the pressure to present a perfect life by running ‘spam accounts’, where they post silly stuff without caring how it looks. They’ve also rejected Sarahah, that pernicious app which allows users to post anonymous insults, on the basis that ‘it’s mean’.

Most apps have the propensity to spew meanness in the wrong hands, but since we can’t un-invent social media, we have to live with it, with varying degrees of tolerance which are indubitably linked to age. My mother (in her 80s) quite rightly says she feels like ‘a second-class citizen’ because she’s not online: my tween daughter has barely experienced life pre-internet. Part of me hopes she and her friends will glut themselves on social media like cake, then go on to be more moderate consumers than my generation. ‘Remember when our parents were obsessed with Instagram,’ they’ll smile, and go back to their macramé. But probably not.

Big shout out

The world is divided into two types of people: those who love Cardi B (left), and those who haven’t a bloody clue who she is. Thanks to her appearance at several New York fashion shows, people who fell into the latter category have now looked her up on Wikipedia and downloaded ‘Bodak Yellow’, for woe betide you if you can’t identify the hot new rapper on the frow (‘I don’t understand. Is she famous for her cardigans?’ one editor was heard to enquire). The latest female to be blighted by those insensitive ‘is she or isn’t she’ pregnancy rumours that pass for news these days, trust candid Cardi to have the all-time best reply. ‘No, bitch, I’m just getting fat,’ she said. All the ladies in their first trimester: you know what to say.

A fashionable yawn

This fashion month, I shall mostly be getting bored of backstage videos featuring models making bland pronouncements about their shoes, their make-up and the clothes they’re wearing. True, there was a time when ‘backstage access’ seemed new and exciting, but that ship sailed long ago. Taking a 360-degree approach to fashion only works when the panorama is interesting and well-conceived. Thrusting an iPhone into some hapless model’s face while she gets her lipstick done is neither. With a few exceptions — Slick Woods (above), the ever-dry Edie Campbell — models are no more interesting than the rest of us would be when forced to comment on world peace or the handbags in the Burberry show in the middle of getting changed, one eye on what to have for dinner. And while we’re at it, can everyone stop blowing kisses to camera, like ersatz Marilyn Monroes? Cheers.