I can't O2, can you?

I am occasionally lightly ribbed by colleagues and friends for the quality – or rather lack of quality – of my mobile phone handset. It’s a basic one; one that allows me to make phone calls and send text messages and little else. I feel no desire for anything more from my mobile phone. I don’t feel the need to photograph every amusing and/or strange thing I come across – I have a memory and, if I feel inclined, the power of speech and good enough diction with which to convey the various, hilarious happenings in my life to my friends and family. In reality, even if I were of the camera phone wielding type, I probably wouldn’t take pictures of that much anyway, as I seem to be becoming increasingly unmoved and unimpressed with most things in life. It’s age, that is.

I’ll get to the point before you all die of old age – my phone’s crap. “It’s not 1992” one of my colleagues rather humorously stated. It gets covered in beer and thrown on the floor most of the time, is my stock response, so why would I bother having a hugely expensive one? An email from O2 this week emphasised the backwards nature of my technology habits. They were “spreading the word on an interesting camera-phone image recognition competition to leak over the Web.” Leak over the web? What do they think they are, MI5? Anyway – I’ll let them explain it to you:

“In short it's a clever campaign by O2 that uses billboards, the London underground, press, TV, in-store and even online (for 02 customers only). With the poster image in the above blog post on your site or in print (or elsewhere on TV, Underground etc) readers can take a camera-phone picture of it then SMS it with the letters 'NYE' to 63333 and via new image processing technology they will receive a tailored image reply (opening the "I" door in the image to reveal a pic of The O2 or a Xmas tree).”

If you’ve not got it yet (they do seem to assume certain things of the reader) have a look at this patronising guide...I mean instructional video...on what to do:

I think that means take a photo of the ad with your phone and you might win something in London. I can’t, obviously, being technology challenged as I am.