Some point in the late 1990s during one late Sunday night in Brixton, South London, I was waiting on a bus to go home. A guy came up to me, mumbling. I became nervous. Was he a nutter about to stab me? He had a hood on and it was drizzling lightly, if I recall correctly.<\/p>\n
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nWilliam Gibson, Neuromancer.<\/em><\/p>\n
It turns out the nutter was talking on his phone, on a headset or an earpiece. I couldn\u2019t see it, it was dark and wet, and the device was concealed in his clothing. While crazy people wandering around Brixton was nothing new, people walking around talking to themselves was a recent development. Mumbling, shouting, swearing obscenities. Mobile phones were everywhere. I couldn\u2019t take the train to work in the morning without some loud-mouthed jerk yelling about how he was \u201cGonna be there in five minutes\u201d and how kippered he was after last night\u2019s drinking.<\/p>\n
A few years later, Bluetooth headsets<\/a> appeared.<\/p>\n
Now, a decade later, there are numerous opinion pieces in countless magazines around the world, wondering \u201cDo Bluetooth Headsets Look Stupid?<\/a>\u201d (yes) and how they can negatively affect your driving (talking on a cell phone and driving is totally like driving drunk, which is a TOTALLY PROVEN\u00a0SCIENCE FACT<\/a>.)<\/p>\n