At the end of the last ski season, I wrote a little rant about people using mobiles on the piste. There’s nothing more irritating than having the peace and tranquility of the mountains shattered by a ring tone followed by a loud voice talking about which ski hut to meet in for lunch - and that was even pre-Crazy Frog days. Or, having to ski round someone who stops abruptly on the piste to answer their mobile.

Well, it seems as if I’m not the only one, according to a story in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph. It seems that an adventure tours holiday operator has banned mobile phones from its trips - travellers have to hand in their mobiles and they are returned at the end of it.

The operator specialises in “once in a lifetime” trips to places like the Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru or climbing Kilimanjaro. It seems that quite often during these expensive, special moments a mobile would trill, ruining the experience.

One such victim was 10,000 feet into the ascent of Kilimanjaro, when some idiot phoned the office:

“I couldn’t believe it,” Mr Bishop said. “We were just putting up our tent at a campsite on the Machame route up Kilimanjaro when this guy - I think he was a businessmen or a politician - suddenly started talking on his mobile in a loud voice.

“There I was in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, looking out over the savannah… and all I could hear was ‘in the second paragraph, line four can we take out the word…’.

No one is a more enthusiastic promoter of mobile phones than me. But there’s a time and a place for them and if people can’t behave responsibly, an outright ban seems to be the only solution.