‘Only connect’ – such were the famous (almost) concluding words of E. M. Forster’s novel, Howard’s Way. I think if Forster were alive today and still writing, he would end the book differently: ‘Only disconnect.’

It is very difficult to disconnect these days, psychologically if not physically. Although I think that the so-called social media would be much better and more accurately called the anti-social media (for which of us has not seen and remarked upon four people at a restaurant table ignoring each other and glued to their little screens?), I cannot claim myself to be so very different from my modern fellow men. If I am separated from my telephone or the internet for more than a few hours I grow anxious, principally that I will have missed the transformative offer of my life – not that I experience my life as being in such great need of transformation. Still, a change is as good as a rest.

It is difficult to isolate yourself these days, though I know one or two admirable people who refuse to use the internet and have no mobile phones. I assume that they are resisting temptation, but perhaps they are not tempted in the first place. This raises the important question as to whether it is more morally admirable to be so perfect as not to be tempted by something, or to be perfect enough to be tempted by it but to resist.

Be that as it may, I have all but forgotten how wonderful it was to be out of contact with the people I knew (and liked) for quite long periods, sometimes for months. There was something luxurious about it; I was able to luxuriate in a certain lack of responsibility, for I heard no complaints and therefore had to suggest no solutions. ‘When two Englishmen meet,’ said Doctor Johnson, ‘their first talk is of the weather.’ When two friends meet, the first thing they do is complain; how wonderful I was to be free of all that!

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