We love technology. We have iPads, iPhones, iDlers, iDiots – and I’m an iDol. Even idols use gadgets to make our life easier.
It is not easy to squint at the shopping list on your smartphone in bright sunlight in a supermarket car park to work out whether she wants carrots, cardamom, caraway, courgettes, or just currants.
OK, a scribbled note is sometimes better. Some old tech still works. That’s my sermon today.
Vinyl records made a comeback but cassette tapes never will because they unwind, they twist and then they sound awful. I also loved my old portable typewriter that I started writing on but I probably won’t get another one.
If you’re too young to know what I’m talking about, a typewriter was a manual computer with an integral printer. Or maybe it was a printer with an integral keyboard.
Actually, when you think of it like that, it was a handy thing. You still had to buy typing paper, but not ink. Just ribbons. That was because all typists back then had to have nice, elegant hair. I did, but my typing was very faint.
The human cost of technology
Technology, however, has a cost. I am not talking of the human cost of generations of greasy youngsters turned into gaming addicts. Nor the fact that self-service checkouts are chucking people onto the dole. I am talking dosh.
For instance, we have a very high-tech tumble dryer that works a bit like Mrs X. It doesn’t always do what you want when you press its buttons. Whether it does have artificial intelligence, I know not. All I want is a dry shirt.
This particular appliance of science takes about three hours to do what a dryer did 30 years ago in 30 minutes flat. And it is horrendously heavy on the leccy.
Islanders have things we don’t need. We don’t need ferries that keep breaking down, shipyards building ferries that are run so badly they’re years behind schedule and island airports run by robots in Inverness tossing local workers on the scrapheap.
By robots, I don’t mean the planned remote-controlled air traffic systems, I mean the management of Highland and Islands Airports Ltd.
Stepping back in time
Robots are cold, heartless, unfeeling. Or maybe I’m thinking of Katie Hopkins who’s been booted out of Australia. A bit like what could happen to our now-despised robot – our tumble dryer.
So we stepped back in time and decided to get… a clothes line. Old tech. It’s the way forward, as Paul Nikpavlovich, the Stornoway-based gardener to the stars – and some dodgy types too – is often heard to declare.
If I wanted a laugh, I’d go to Heathrow and watch Katie Hopkins getting off the plane – or see what Dominic Cummings is accusing the PM of this week
So I galloped down to the housewares place for a line. An assistant unhelpfully claimed they did not have clothes lines in stock. He then giggled and said: “You can only get them online.”
That’s enough. I’m in a hurry. If I wanted a laugh, I’d go to Heathrow and watch Katie Hopkins getting off the plane – or see what Dominic Cummings is accusing the PM of this week. The unfunny thing is that it may all be true.
Meanwhile, associated support structures were erected at the beginning of last week by Neil Across The Road. Neil probably does have a proper surname but that’s how we know him. We’ve only lived here five years.
By the middle of the week, with the cement set and tension tested by Mr ATR, Mrs X did a wash. With great ceremony, she announced, basket under her washerwoman arm, that she was going out to hang her first Plasterfield washing. The neighbourhood gathered to witness the premier event. I should have sold tickets.
Sadly, she’d got about two steps out the door when the rain started. Washout. Still, better days ahead.
Severe heat means good drying weather
There is now a severe heat warning for much of England. That probably means the rain may keep away here for one or two days. Good drying weather, then.
Oh-oh, it’s happened. Apart from rain, there is something else that is a constant fear when you have a washing line. Knicker nickers. Underwear has been stolen from our new washing line. Just one item taken – Mrs X’s favourite panties.
Strangely, she wasn’t that upset about it. I asked her why and she said it was OK as she had that pair for many years. That’s the spirit, old girl.
Listen, bloomers bandit. It’s like this. Keep her drawers if you want, but we’re not made of money. We want those eight pegs back.