Smart meters and phone hacking

Smart meters are a replacement for your existing meters and send electronic meter readings to your energy supplier automatically.

Yes, I understand, and they are supposed to help you save electricity as well - however - us older folk, grew up during WW2, and because of those austerity years, are in the habit of switching off appliances and lights when they are no longer in use - consequently - well in our house at any rate, I have been known to switch off the light as I exit the room, having forgotten there is still someone sitting in there. (Opps, sorry, darling - was that your shin you bumped in the dark?)
Almost as bad as whipping the plate from in front of my aunt before she had finished eating - which I once did.  Very embarrassing! For me, at any rate. I'm glad she saw the funny side!
Of course we now have more electrical equipment than we did in those days - at home when I was a slim and spritely young thing (oh those wonderful days) we had an electric hob and oven, and the lights. We toasted bread under the grill or, at twilight, sat  in front of the coal fire while dangling a slice of bread from the end of a toasting fork - and many's the time one dropped it into the cinders.
Until the day she died in 1962, my grandmother stuck to coalgas through thick and thin, and wouldn't have electricity in the house at any price - after all you couldn't smell electricity if it leaked!!
So it was accumulator batteries if you wanted a radio, and anyone renting one of her rooms had to manage without  - no toasters, electric blankets, or TV. Perhaps that was just as well judging by the programmes one receives (and YES that is the corerct way to spell the word which is so often spelt program in today's world.)
Every night she went round lighting the gas lamps on the landings to make sure no-one fell down the stairs - no timed switches for her. Heaven knows what she would have made of all the electronic gadgets today.
She wasn't into phones either - she knew a thing or two, did my Nan - smarter than most of us today - after all, she once told me, anyone could be listening in to the call. Ha ha, we laughed, as if that could happen.
Oh, my darling Nanny, you were so right.