Page 77 - Phonebox Magazine April 2011

DAVID PIBWORTH COLUMN
The world of the computer
Have you filled in your 2011 Census yet?
Question 17 is a cracker. It’s ‘left intentionally blank.’ They quote this beside the question and ask you to go on to question 18. Why do they bother to have a question 17 at all? I expect some civil servant had one over the eight at lunch time and put it in as a joke. Oh I do hope so.
Then they ask you if you’re black, gay, Jewish, oh, all sorts of things which aren’t necessary for any government to know. Don’t forget that if we are all loopy enough to vote in May for the AV voting system, (a referendum that wasn’t promised or asked for but costs 9.3 million pounds), then we may well get BNP members of parliament, even though they wouldn’t be the first choice of most people. You never know who the government of the future will be, but you sure as hell know that they will have all this information.
Anyway, fill the form out as you see fit. I bet you never guessed that I was a Carribean Sikh Chartered Accountant who travels to work on a tram.
However this month I really write about what I was going to last month, until I was side tracked by a police matter in Olney. Computers. We middle aged types tend to scoff at them. Either that or we are so engrossed in how brilliant they are that we bore people to death about them. Especially that curious breed who go on about Mac computers, and roam around like minority religious fanatics, trying to convince anyone who is not converted that they know not the meaning of life.
Anyway, I’m in the middle on all this. I like email. Most theatre work now comes through it, but if it packed up it wouldn’t be the end of the world. We’d learn to speak to people again. As for paying for goods etc goes, it’s excellent and life is a whole lot easier with
online banking. Cheques will be null and void soon and for those who worry about that, remember - cash is still a very acceptable alternative and much as the establishment would love to be able to track every transaction you or I make, cash is still where you get the best deals and quite outside the world of the computer.
For research purposes it’s quite excellent. For example I don’t know how many episodes of Wacky Races were made, but hold on for a minute.................. 17 episodes were made, each featuring two races, which makes a total of 34 races in all. Now then, that took me about 10 seconds to find out. Unfortunately I also wasted 5 minutes enjoying looking at who all the characters in it were. I’d forgotten about Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth in the Buzzwagon. And that’s where the problem lies. You look something up and get waylaid by other interesting facts. But the point is that you can look up anything instead of having to go to the library or phone a friend. From an educational point of view you can’t really argue with it. You can research anything in seconds and be more knowledgeable and that has to be for the good.
There is some rubbish on it too, but well, you don’t have to go far by just talking to people in the street before you come across someone who ‘Has Absolute Proof’ that Princess Diana’s death was a conspiracy by Prince Philip, or the way to rid yourself of terrible diseases is to dismiss your doctor and eat elderberries for a month, so it’s really only reflecting public views and ideas, mad or otherwise.
I’ve recently become interested in Facebook. For those of you who are unaware of this, it is a social network site where you can let all your friends, and indeed anyone who is a
member, know what you are doing via messages. I got into it because comedians let me know where they are working via Facebook, plus their availability and little bits of interesting gossip.
I now look at it about twice a week when I can be bothered.
There’s a shed full of do gooders about, who post messages in an attempt to bring happiness into our lives. Or their own. Oh, and the campaigns! You can join groups who want to change the political scene, start a new religion, get famous and all that nonsense, but all in all it’s great and not only do we get jokes out of it, which is of primary concern to me, but it’s forum that allows you to irritate do gooders which is always worthwhile.
So that’s my view on the computer. You can learn, you can find music, annoy people and promote yourself on it, and so the positives by far outnumber the negatives.
But, lest we forget, it’s not only for young people. As we all tread the path into senility, Old People Homes will change too, and listening to nostalgic music in the lounge won’t consist of Al Bowlly, George Formby and The Andrews Sisters (excellent though they all are). It will now be Bowie, The Stones, and possibly even Cliff singing to you ‘live and unplugged’. Well, he’d soon be unplugged if he tried to sing to me.
And of course there will be a computer in every room.
So when my daughter finally trundles me into the Newport Pagnell Home for the Bewildered, we can converse on facebook. She will send me snippets of information about her life and I will reply each time with “I’m 82, you know” and she won’t even have to visit me.
Now that’s progress.
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Phonebox Magazine 77