i Editor's Letter: "I'll have to ring you back"

Darren Groom, of the Little Red Roaster coffee shop in Norwich, is my hero of the week.

Mr Groom has told customers that his staff are unable to serve them if they are on the phone.

He says he is fed up with people yapping away on their phone, while mouthing their order to his staff. Because they're talking, the staff have to wait to ask them if they want skimmed milk, hazelnut syrup, cold milk, hot milk and so on.

Mr Groom and his staff feel this is discourteous. And it is. But they must be amazingly patient, because this sort of behaviour has annoyed me ever since mobile phones came into common usage.

It's not just annoying for sales assistants (although it's worse for them because they have to put up with it all day long). It's very annoying if you're behind the person on the phone, because you have to wait twice as long to get served.

It seems that the phrase "I'll have to ring you back" has disappeared from the English language. It doesn't seem to occur to these phone-atics that you could switch the mobile off or reject a call while you are engaged in another activity.

It's the same on social occasions. I'm sure you've all had that experience when you're out for a drink, or dinner, or coffee, and a friend interrupts the conversation to answer the phone and embarks on a lengthy dialogue with someone else.

I don't mind so much if the friend says: "I've really got to take this call", and then makes an obvious effort to get off the phone as quickly as possible. Very often, however, it seems as if the phone takes priority over everything else.

It's bad manners – and anyone who does it deserves to get a little red roasting.

Stefano Hatfield is away