My mother would have been 100 today. Certainly in her lifetime she would have enjoyed futuristic comics and those early TV black and whites showing flying cars and aliens in our midst. Somehow nothing was as frightening as those early Quatermass stories and aliens who could only be identified by a bent little finger.
But, no-one could have predicted the deadly advance of the PC, something that has altered all our lives. Now, with one click of that same little finger, we have the whole world at our fingertips. I remember my mother's confusion in '71 with the advent of the UK's decimal currency. How would she have coped with or even comprehended today's confusing techno world?
However, the older I get and the more different people I encounter, some things never change. It matters not a jot what you wear on your head, nor what faith you espouse, nor how technology has changed your life. It's what's in your heart that matters. The essential things remain the same, wherever you live: treat others as you would yourself and always do the 'right thing'. What was it Mill, the philosopher said? Do whatever it takes to make yourself happy, as long as it doesn't hurt others.
That's what my mother would have said back in 1910. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose. Bon anniversaire, Mom.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
25th October 2009
As we struggle to change all the digital clocks back one hour this morning, I can't help but think that more than anything else that's happened in my lifetime, it's the constant advance of technology that's the most worrying. Yes, I know, technology is supposed to be a good thing. But in my view it needs to be targeted better, or we'll all be the worse for it.
Take mobile phones. New results from a £20million, decade-long WHO investigation, has revealed that heavy mobile phone users face a higher risk of developing brain tumours later in life. Children, in particular, need to learn to use such devices for important, not spurious, reasons. France, quite rightly, is one of the first governments to publish the risk and take urgent action. The problem is that so often the benefits of technology are being taken over for stupid, commercial reasons, like Wiifi and other games. We're constantly urged to buy a new Nintendo 'brain' game, when surely a Sudoko book or simple paper crossword puzzle would work just as well?
I would urge all techno engineers to target their expensive efforts away from the superfluous to the real needs of society. It makes me smile to see such wonderful new plasma, super-thin TVs - but still with the old fiddly plugs attached. Come on techno whizz-kids, give us simple click-on plugs with click-in fuses, i.e. really useful aids in this techno age.
Take mobile phones. New results from a £20million, decade-long WHO investigation, has revealed that heavy mobile phone users face a higher risk of developing brain tumours later in life. Children, in particular, need to learn to use such devices for important, not spurious, reasons. France, quite rightly, is one of the first governments to publish the risk and take urgent action. The problem is that so often the benefits of technology are being taken over for stupid, commercial reasons, like Wiifi and other games. We're constantly urged to buy a new Nintendo 'brain' game, when surely a Sudoko book or simple paper crossword puzzle would work just as well?
I would urge all techno engineers to target their expensive efforts away from the superfluous to the real needs of society. It makes me smile to see such wonderful new plasma, super-thin TVs - but still with the old fiddly plugs attached. Come on techno whizz-kids, give us simple click-on plugs with click-in fuses, i.e. really useful aids in this techno age.
17th September 2008
In writing this daily blog I try to embody some of the cultural and political bonds that link Britain and France. As such I like to think I'm a sort of modern-day Alistair Cooke, who all those years ago used to broadcast via his weekly BBC radio programme 'Letter from America'. He was born in Manchester in 1908 but became a US citizen in 1941. Of course back in 1946 when Cooke first started broadcasting across the globe, he could have had no idea of the technological revolution to come. Nor could he have had any inkling of the difficulties oldsters like me would have in trying to communicate globally from my humble abode here in rural France, aeons away from the BBC expertise that Cooke could call upon. How to find out the French word for some of the keyboard symbols like @ or # ? These sort of things are never in my French:English dictionary. And you all know what happened when him indoors went to buy a computer mouse yesterday! But, petit a petit, little by little, we get by. By chance, I have now discovered that the # symbol is called dieze in French. When I'm trying to decipher an incoming phone message, the French telephone operator leaves her dratted recorded message: '...if you want this, tappez dieze......' So, voila! That's one problem solved. Of course, all of these are the trivial problems of a new immigrant to these shores, but what of the future? Will the current appalling economic and immigrant problems endemic in Britain bring more and more British to France? If so, let us hope that, like Alistair Cooke back in 1946, they learn to integrate by adopting the new culture, despite all the consequent hysterical comedy situations that engenders. After all, by reading my blog every day, you'll have gathered that I should know.
4th September 2008
After talking about French numbers yesterday, to all those of you who think we should now discuss Letters......No!! (You can read the final extact from 'Sex a la francaise' on Sunday). I know - I've led a sheltered life. They say that my generation has lived through more changes in the last 50 years than any other generation ever. I was born just after the war when English rationing was still in force. Everyone had a little brown book where there was one page for each major item, like tea. All householders had to register with their local shop so that the shopkeeper could then authorise us to buy food by crossing off and subtracting the relevant points used for each product for that particular month. Oh, how times have changed. It was when I hit 13 in the '60s that all hell was let loose. From the time when John Lennon told the London Palladium audience to 'rattle their jewellery', attitudes, perspectives and morals were all transformed. And technology! For original personal secretaries like me, technology advanced at an alarming rate. From those wonderful IBM golfball typewriters, we zoomed ahead through AppleMacs, Fax machines, P.C.s, the internet, i-phones and now E-books. Where will it all end? So, to our daughter whose special day it is today, I'm glad we've survived through it all - even a new language - to be able to wish you Bonne anniversaire!
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