Hospital waiting rooms aren't fun and mostly they aren't funny. Couches with safe patterns, neutral carpets, nervous people wandering in and out clutching thick-rimmed cups of tea or coffee. Best bring your own reading material, too, unless you have a particular interest in the going rate of Corvettes five years ago as advertised in Unique Cars, June 1999.

But the other waiting-on-patients can provide relief. In amongst the desultory chatter about cars and weather, mobile phones turned up as a topic worth delving into. Quite the technological showpiece, opined a middle-aged woman opposite me. Cameras, picture texting, god knows what - even 3MP players. It's probably not the done thing to snort with hysterical laughter in an oncology ward, so thank God for books big enough to cover your face and hide your laboured breathing.

I did wonder, though, what a playlist for a 3MP player would look like. Would Apple release oldTunes? easyPods?