My roommate was going out on a blind date so I told her about this phone app for her own safety.

I said: “It’s called *Mum! Are you OK?* and what is does is, it puts a button on your display which you can press and then a couple of minutes later your phone will ring and the display will say MUM. So if you get there and your date looks a bit creepy you just touch the button, put your phone away, and then when the phone goes you can pick it up and say ‘Mum! Are you OK?’ and there’s your excuse for you to leave.”

So she downloaded it and went off on her date, and then about an hour later she turned up at home looking upset. I said “Hi, how did it go?”

“Awful!” she wailed. “I’d only been there five minutes and it was going great, and then his phone rang and he answered it and he said ‘Mum! Are you OK?’ “