HENRY DEEDS: Even on holiday in the heavenly Greek island of Kefalonia there’s no escaping mobile morons

The Greek island of Kefalonia is the stuff of postcards or a thousand cheerful Instagram posts. The sea is turquoise, the sand white as fresh snow and the warm air stimulating with wild lavender. Even the local wine has a certain sour charm – although a double dose of aspirin the next morning may require more than half a carafe alongside your evening souvlaki.

It is therefore with a heavy heart that I have to report – after returning from a holiday there – that this blissful Ionian island is facing a very British threat that seems to be impacting holiday resorts and seaside resorts all over mainland Europe.

Not the pink-bellied lager, scourge of the Mediterranean. No, this is an even more gruesome kind of holiday destroyer. I mean the cell phone idiots who insist on having their conversations on speaker phone.

It’s bad enough having to listen to people chatting on the phone in all our public places. There’s a man on my bus to work every morning who insists on using the time to catch up with family in distant lands, which can be a test for those of us for whom mornings can be a somewhat sensitive time. But nowadays, having to put up with such boring monologues is simply not enough – this new breed of incessant phone conversations is kind enough to give us both sides of the conversation.

The result: a screeching, deafening racket that sounds like someone is shouting through a rusty old British Rail tannoy.

I had barely boarded the plane at Gatwick on the way to my Greek getaway when a portly boy in sandals plopped down in front of me and immediately gave in to the urge to call his mother – on loudspeaker, of course – to inform her of our flight delay. , which had lasted all of 15 minutes.

The dialogue that followed would not have given the late Harold Pinter, or any other playwright, sleepless nights. No, the delay wasn’t too bad, the guy agreed. Yes, it could have been worse. Mom sounded about as fascinated by her son’s travel arrangements as any of us.

Flying is a predictably hellish affair, but I had higher expectations for my hotel, a brand new boutique that I fully expected to be an oasis of calm as children were strictly prohibited. Just imagine: no squeaky game of tag around the pool, no dive bombs to interrupt my post-prandial nap. Two weeks of unspoilt peace and quiet.

Or so I thought. But at almost any time of the day, next to the so-called relaxation area under the swaying olive trees, there was some loser lying on a lounge chair with a cocktail in one hand and a cell phone in the other, bragging about the beautiful weather for one of their friends.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged chap was treated to a friend’s bespoke commentary on the English cricket match, which was shared with the rest of us via the wonders of the loudspeaker – all for free.

The worst was an Australian lothario from Brylcreemed, who sat next to me on the armchair one afternoon and then appeared to be on the phone with his mistress in Cyprus, checking if the coast was clear for him to visit.

It’s even more annoying when someone decides to broadcast their terrible music at full volume. Or, just as bad, their YouTube videos or tiring computer games, the volume turned up to 11.

At first I wondered if my irritation was further evidence of my inevitable slide into grumpy middle age.

SPEAKERS’ CORNER: Boring cell phone users noisily take over the idyllic village

But Lisa Lavia, chief executive of the Noise Abatement Society, a charity aimed at raising awareness of noise pollution, explains that stress caused by the noise of others is a completely normal human response.

“We are biologically programmed to be alert to other human voices,” she says. ‘First we want to know if the voice is safe, is it friendly? Does it mean I am causing harm? Once that’s established, we go from being alert to feeling trapped because our brains can’t just turn off the noise.

‘It’s like holding your hand to a hot stove and someone telling you to ignore the pain – it doesn’t work.’

Being British, I’ve never complained – a natural reaction, according to Lisa, but one that reinforces our sense of anger. “Most of us don’t feel comfortable telling people to be quiet,” she says, “so we feel pushed around without being able to take action. Which then increases our anxiety and fear.”

Lisa says the solution to the problem is to make people more aware of the stress they cause others, just as litterers should be shamed into picking up their waste.

Either that, or what I had wanted to do all along: take the red device out of their hands and throw it headlong into the sea.