Look out, the balloon's going up

AN unusual buzzing from my mobile phone last Friday caught my immediate attention.

The alarm, quite different from the usual ring tones, heralded one of the first emergency alerts to have been used since the system was piloted last year.

As a journalist, I was already very aware of what was going on but I did wonder how many people would have been caught totally unawares and been rather concerned by the arrival of the security alert.

This first real test of the government's emergency alert system, undoubtedly proved effective. Yet a random survey of friends and colleagues showed many people had turned off the alert system on their phones due to becoming irritated by the messages during the trial period.

That seems a pity. While those of us living close to the dockyard are used to the ominous whine of its siren being tested every Monday morning, the only message it is capable of providing in a real situation is "we are all doomed".