BY seven o’clock this morning I’d learnt a new word: “fubbing”. Have you ever fubbed? I haven’t. I’ve done many other things which I’m sure are very reprehensible, but as to fubbing, I’m not guilty, mi’ lord. I’ve cussed on too many occasions. I’ve dozed off in lectures and sermons, and once I even revoked at the village whist drive which nearly got me exiled from all polite company. But no, I ain’t never fubbed and I’m not going to start, for the simple reason that I don’t have anything to fub with.

So, let me put you out of your misery: the BBC Radio Four announcer told us that fubbing is the new social vice. It’s a form of snubbing, but done electronically.

So to fub is to be in breach of the proper etiquette for use of the mobile phone.

Oh yes, there are a whole lot of fubbers out there. In fact, you can hardly go ten minutes without seeing at least one of them in action.

The definition of this new vice is “to talk over your phone while you’re in the company of real live people”. It’s rude, that goes without saying.

And in the attempt to put a stop to fubbing, those irritated by it have devised a sort of penal code setting out the unpleasant consequences for fubbers caught in the act.

For example, anyone who answers the mobile phone during a restaurant meal is required to pay the bill for the whole party.

Some groups of diners even stipulate that their companions must place their phones out of reach in the middle of the table for the duration of the nosh. When I was a lad about town, this was the practice, I recall, only with keys.

Be sure to look out, there’s a fubber about.

It’s the mark of insensitivity to approach the bank clerk to make a transaction and at the same time continue to talk on the phone.

What it says to the fellow behind the glass is: “You don’t count.”

I’ve seen it again and again in the supermarket.

It’s hard to think of anything more coarse or insulting. This behaving as if other people are not really there, as if they don’t exist, is called “solipsism” – “only-I-ism” – and there’s too much of it.

The most crass example I ever came across of this rudeness, you won’t believe – though I assure it actually happened.

I was celebrating the Thursday lunchtime Holy Communion for City workers at St Sepulchre’s church opposite The Old Bailey.

An Italian lady of the colourful, exotic sort approached the altar rail. As she knelt to receive the Sacrament, her phone went off.

That’s embarrassing but forgivable.

What I found difficult to forgive was what she did next. She used one hand to answer it while holding out her other hand to receive the sacred bread.

The other members of the small weekday congregation looked bemused but resigned – as if they had accidentally strolled into one of those horrible modern services full of gimmicks where anything might happen, where the priest performs the rite as if his real expertise were not priest-craft but the art of the game show compere.

What would you have done?

I’ll tell you what I did, almost by reflex. I said to the woman: “Turn that thing off.” And I can tell you, it was only by the grace of God reminding me of where I was standing that prevented me from saying: “Turn that ******* thing off.”

Brothers and sisters, fub thee not.