Apple iPhone: Biggestproduct of 2007; Most hyped gadget in the history of mankind; The cause ofmore worldwide hysteria than George W Bush and his army of tyrannicalRepublican mercenaries; The most written about, and most sexy product since theWonderbra; Best and slimmest household item since individually wrapped cheese slices; And finally,the most worshipped invention since Jesus Christ himself.

The irony was not lost on me as I travelled over to Bristol on Friday afternoon to cover the Apple iPhonelaunch in the UK.After all, only four months ago I published a Rungsberry blog entitled ' 5reasons why the Apple iPhone makes me miserable'.

Biggest launch of the year?

But after being invited by the Carphone Warehouse to its store in Bristol,I went along with my Editor and our Copy Editor, Julia Sagar, to witness the launchof, what is in all honesty, the hottest product launch any of us have ever witnessed.

Would crowds, thousands-strong, storm the Carphone Warehousestore in Broadmead to seize iPhones by force? Would violence break out amongstthose in the queue? Would people be crying with sheer joy at the very thoughtof getting their hands on an iPhone? Would we see Apple Fanboys discardingtheir Sony Ericsson and Nokia handsets, ceremoniously setting them on fireand lobbing them into the River Avon?

In actual fact, none of the above things happened. Thelaunch, in Bristol at least, was fairly low-key. We saw none of the manic scenes that Dan and Anna witnessed in London.

Meet the iTramp

The only odd thing that did happen involved a weird homelesstramp man, his efforts to get an iPhone and his bafflement at the realisationthat things in the 21st Century do actually cost money. The vagrant identified himself as "Mr King. Just, Mr King".

Drawn by the scent of free Carphone Warehouse sandwiches, he was held at bay for afew minutes by security guards. But after a while he was in the store, minglingwith the other iPhone-suitors: a quiet collection of people who smelledconsiderably less bad than he did.

He kept asking me how he could get an iPhone. I told him totalk to someone who actually worked in the store. So he went and waited to beattended to.