By the sea below Tintagel Castle in Cornwall is a great tunnel of a dark cave, known locally as Merlin's Cave.

Visiting earlier this year I decided to clamber rocks to reach the opposite mouth of the cave where it gives out on the open sea. I got to a rock pool and reckoned I should be able to jump across it. As I leapt across, my mobile phone decided to make its transit by a different route, shooting out of my pocket and landing not on the other side but beneath the surface of the water. I fished it out and washed it through with mineral water. After 24 hours on a hot radiator the phone worked as well as it ever had.

Some six months something strange began to happen. During calls, made at home, several friends asked where I was. From the sound of the call, all of them thought I was by the sea, or at the very least by running water. Perish the thought that the sound of Merlin's Cave had somehow entered the phone, and was calling it back to Cornwall...