About 10 days ago a girl from the BBC called me in Cornwall to ask if I would go on the radio to talk about the menace of BlackBerries and how they interfere with one's holiday.

No, I didn't want to do that because going on the radio interferes with one's holiday, too. In any case, as I don't own a functioning BlackBerry, I couldn't comment on the menace. I can say something about the menace of mobile phones, though.

Last week, my husband left his on the bus and the person who found it sent texts to random female names in his address book inviting them to have sex with him.

Given that my husband is editor of Prospect magazine and his mobile contains the names of some of the doughtiest female intellectuals in Britain as well as some sweet young interns, the nanny, the cleaner and so on, the potential for awkwardness was really quite high. It took some unscrambling.

As for BlackBerries, the greatest menace comes from not having one. This lack may make holidays better but it makes the return worse.

You get back to find that unread e-mails in your in-box have multiplied - according to researchers in Glasgow, the average person has 600 waiting for them after a two-week break.

In the impossibly long-ago age before e-mail, the return from holiday was a leisurely thing. People used to say: "Gosh! You look well, did you have a nice time?" then you'd whip out your holiday snaps.

One of the first messages waiting for me on return was from Kevan Hall, management expert and author of Speed Lead. His advice to returning holidaymakers: delete the whole lot. He argues that most things will have resolved themselves in your absence and anything important will be sent again.

The simplicity and audacity of this has some appeal, but it isn't the answer. To delete everything is like saying: "Talk to the hand." It is the ultimate way of playing I-am-more-important-than-you, which is a game to be discouraged.

For me, post-holiday e-mail anxiety isn't about the sheer number. Mine comes from the fear there will be something nasty in there, and the hope that there will be something nice.

Deleting everything doesn't help: the nastier things will come back even nastier next time and the nice ones may go for ever.

Mr Hall's scheme is that it is tantamount to saying that e-mail is so out of control we can't cope any more. Actually, we can cope. We just need to be firm with ourselves. To prove it, I settled down to tackle my in-box and timed myself.

There were 543 messages waiting for me after 10 days. I deleted everything but then scrolled down and undeleted anything that looked interesting, important or comic.

It took 32 minutes to sort the electronic goats from the sheep, and was dead easy. A message from one's boss with the ominous subject line: "your Monday column" was something I needed to keep.

In all, I found 58 worth saving. Reading through and replying to these took two hours and 48 minutes. This time there were no real nasties and nothing really nice either. Does that mean that I just wasted the best part of three hours? Not a bit of it. The e-mail exercise was a good way of getting started. It was like diving into a pool of cold water, which leaves one shocked and sobered, but braced for some proper work.

If I had deleted all my e-mails I would never have known about the Loo of the Year Award, a prize given to the best "away-from-home toilet location" in Britain.

I have always been interested in the away-from-home toilet location. In particular, when that location is in an office.

The workplace loo is an odd place, as it is where the private meets the professional, and in most offices no management thought goes into getting it right.

If I were judging the awards I would take three things into account.

Cleanliness. A dirty office loo is really dispiriting. It says that your colleagues are slovenly and that the company has outsourced its cleaning to underpaid cleaners.

Privacy. Doors of cubicles should go down to the ground and be sound-proofed. In offices one wants neither the noises from inside to travel outside, nor vice versa. To be standing by the basins gossiping about someone only to find they are in the cubicle and listening to every word is tricky.

Mirrors and lighting. Having harsh overhead fluorescent light that makes you look old and harassed is bad for morale.

This year's award is sponsored by Dyson's "Airblade" dryer. I feel more strongly about the menace of automatic hand-dryers than about BlackBerries.

The Dyson dryer apparently forces filtered air at 400mph through a 0.3mm gap so that hands are wiped dry in just 10 seconds. This sounds rather complicated.

In the old days there was a laundered towel in a roll that you pulled down. You dried your hands in three seconds maximum. Afterwards they were properly dry, and the feel of starched linen on cloth was nice. I haven't compared the carbon footprints of alternative methods, but I bet the towel wins hands down.