A true Brit has made the first mobile phone call from the summit of Mount Everest. Rod Baber described his world record in the mountain commuter’s equivalent of: “Hello, darling. This is me. I’m on the train.” He announced to the waiting world: “It’s cold, it’s fantastic, the Himalayas are everywhere.” There is a case for hiring a poet, or at least an advertising copywriter, to compose the script for record breakers.

But his achievement warns us that the Everest season is upon us. About 550 people are attempting to climb it from both Nepal and its northern face in China. Already this season a Nepalese mountaineer has broken another record by scaling Everest like a yo-yo for the seventeenth time. A Briton has made the first flight over the summit on a paraglider. And a Dutchman is geared down to make an attempt wearing only shorts, boots, gloves and a cap. The only record left is to be the first to play a grand piano on the summit. Don’t even mention it. The phone call is just another Everest stunt by a cell phone company.

This call from on high shows that Pascal got it wrong. He said: “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.” We now know that infinite spaces, like the heavens or the top of Everest, are not silent, but noisy. If the howling winds, the roaring satellites and the whistling comets don’t deafen you, the ringtones will. Dante made Hell both very noisy and very cold.

Mobile phones are a boon and a blessing for those in peril on the glacier and down the Mariana Trench. They are a safety net and a techno-rope. But there should perhaps be a notice on the top asking climbers to switch off their mobiles in respect for the Mother of Snows and Silence.