Incidentally ...

The fact that I'm typing this proves that if you leave your mobile phone on, the plane won't necessarily come crashing down. I was sure I'd turned it off - apart from anything, the battery was running down and I wanted to conserve it. So it was stuffed into the hand luggage in the locker.

So when the plane landed and I heard the text message tone - a swirly tune with bird tweets - I thought how interesting, someone else has that tone. And tsk, they haven't turned their phone off. Then I heard the same tone a few more times and I still didn't get it, still thought there must be a lot of people with the same phone as me.

It was only when I got on the train that I found my phone had been turned on all the time, and had picked up eight messages in the air: Welcome to Spain; how to use your phone in Spain; Welcome to France; how to use your phone in France; Welcome to Britain; how to use your phone in Britain; service message please delete; service message please delete.

In the modern world this is as close as you can get to a death-defying experience. I've never felt more alive.