Over the past twelve months I’ve been subjected to a huge number of images I really didn’t want to see.

By people armed with a mobile storing billions of bytes worth of images. Or the same people with a Facebook account.

The colleague who thinks her daughter is model material. The other colleague’s new grandchild. (Three weeks old – what else can I say but ‘Aaah, sweet.’) Another colleague’s new man. Ex man. New man’s ex… God! Will it ever stop?

We’d think it peculiar if someone carried around their photo album and produced it at every opportunity. This is no different.

Actually, I might find family albums more interesting: Old Uncle Madeleine and his partner Jess. Grandpa Victor who opened the first pool maintenance shop in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Aunty Dolores who was a violinist on the Titanic…

But now the phone/PC takes over. I don’t have images on my phone. I use it to call and text people. I’m not on Facebook. My loved ones are close to me – in my mind.

The issue is also that it’s hard to say, ‘No, I don’t want to see your photos.’ I did manage to say it once and the person seemed crushed. Why?

No one’s interested in anyone else’s children. Mine are absolutely phenomenal but I don’t expect others to be interested in them. And especially not interested in seeing a picture of them when they’ve never even met them. What can that possibly tell them about my family?

And likewise I don’t care about other people’s family/acquaintances. It’s a kind of sickness. It’s as though showing me an image of their people confirms that those people exist.

Or do they feel it’s a bizarre kind of sharing? Or involvement? Or that it makes their grandchild/partner/daughter more lovable/loved? It doesn’t.

Or is it a bizarre kind of dispensing with their ‘loved’ ones? ‘I’ve shown everyone their photo, now I can get on with my own life. I’ve done my duty.’

This is the mindset I’d have to possess if I were to show someone I didn’t care about a photo of someone I adored.

‘I’m desperate. I don’t think I care for this person. I can’t feel anything for them. So I carry a digital representation of them around with me. It’s a sort of closeness. I’m showing you this photo because I need help with my feelings. On my own I can’t feel anything.’

A bit exaggerated but not much.

Or is it all a gross vanity? Flattery by proxy. Do they really want to show me photos of themselves and have me say, ‘Aah, sweet’ about them? (Actually someone did show me photos of themselves once…)

Are people now so lacking in real love that showing a photo is a feeble way of compensating for that? Getting that much-needed attention. Feeling someone cares. It’s a sadly urgent plea for affection isn’t it?

It’s all too easy. Showing images (usually very poor quality ones) of people on a phone or on Facebook is decidedly cold. It’s an action which wholly lacks affection. To me they’re dead images. Flat, inanimate and without any identity.

I sometimes think that Facebook is just that: a huge online book of faces. A catalogue. Just a sea of faces. But many, many people I know have hundreds – yes hundreds - of images of family on their page. And I’m subjected to look at them all.

A captive audience since I refuse to show other people images of my own loved ones. In their eyes, I’m the sad one as I don’t have a Facebook account with a thousand images of my children/siblings/cat from every angle.

Please stop. Stop taking photos and stop forcing them on to other people.

On a more positive note, the cash machine at Tesco Express in Amersham on the Hill now dispenses £5 notes. I can’t tell you how this pleases me.

I’m not sure I’d feel more satisfied it HS2 didn’t go ahead, if Kate Middleton donated all her clothes to the British Heart Foundation in Amersham or I learned to make really good mash.