So, my class of students (well, at least one of them) have done the calculations and think that a centimetre of water is enough to shield a mobile phone from communicating with the nearest mast. Only one way to find out. I’ll bring along a bucket, lots of glad wrap and waterproofing materials to tomorrow’s lecture, along with my phone, and they can have a go. (Do I trust them?) If a bucket of water isn’t enough, we’ll have to move over to the swimming pool, but that will probably have to wait until after Easter.
On the subject of putting things that aren’t usually considered as water loving into swimming pools, our cat came into the house Sunday night absolutely drenched. I can only surmise that he’d either had a bucket of water thrown over him by a fed-up neighbour (should hopefully do the trick, but then our cat hasn’t shown a huge degree of intellectual ability in the year or so he’s lived with us) or he’d fallen into someone’s swimming pool. It is reassuring to see from YouTube that cats can actually swim pretty well, and climb out of a pool on their own. It probably wasn’t a near-death experience.