I’ve got to the age where phone calls after 11pm make me panic.

Who on earth is calling this late, and what could possibly be so urgent that it couldn’t possibly wait for a more reasonable hour?

Halfway through my bank holiday viewing of The Amazing Spiderman 2 (just so you know, it was far from amazing) I took a frantic phone call from my friend Mike.

While looking at the football results, Mike dropped his uninsured smartphone in the bathtub. It had kept working, so he just carried on.

A few minutes later the screen went black, and it stopped working.

In my role as the unofficial technology emergency services, I instructed him to head into the kitchen, find some rice and bury the phone in a bowl at the back of the airing cupboard for at least 36 hours.

Rather than some kind of bizarre Viking funeral ritual, rice does a rather nice job of drawing moisture out of expensive gadgets.

If the same mishap occurs to you, turn the phone off straight away, even if it still works, because water likes creating circuits in the innards that shouldn’t exist, ultimately frying your expensive device.

A little earlier today I heard from Mike.

His phone had sprung back to life, thanks to the restorative powers of rice – which saved him at least several hundred quid on repairs, or the rather unpalatable £550 for a direct replacement on the high street.

Mobile phones are expensive devices, and if the mobile phone company has us tied into a contract, they won’t sell you another subsidised device.

Mobile phone insurance often feels like an unnecessary expense, but when you consider the average August Bank Holiday weekend sees around £500,000 worth of claims – almost half which result in a write-off, you might want to reconsider it.

Many of us now have mobile phone insurance included with our monthly bank accounts – all you need to do is look into those ‘extras’ they kindly give you.

Another tip for you – don’t use it in the bath...