NOWHERE is safe from the curse of the mobile phone. Such is the gadget's ubiquity that desolate mountain tops and deepest rainforests probably now resound to the infuriating chirrup of their ringing tone.

But we have discovered one oasis of calm. Old Sleningford gardens, near Ripon, has been declared a mobile phone-free zone. If only every train company and pub landlord would follow suit.

Unfortunately, the garden phone-ban is unlikely to guarantee an idyll of calm. The five acres will no doubt be crammed with people desperate to escape those blasted but often useful things.