(no subject)
I've seen the future and it's terrifying. A newspaper recently featured an article on the "Trolley of the Future" (presumably no-one was busy blowing each other up and stabbing pensioners that day so there was a bit of spare room to fill) that, amongst other things, warns you off buying unhealthy food. Apparently, anything you put in your trolley is scanned by a little black box that can also guide you round the store like sat-nav for the permanently pathetic, and if this little lump of plastic doesn't like what it sees it's not going to be backward about telling your podgy, fat, stupid face to put it back and buy more celery. And get a haircut.
The company behind all this, who go by the chillingly vague name of 'EDS', issued a quote for the piece which ranks as one of the most sinister utterances ever printed in a British newspaper: "It may not stop you putting cream cakes in the trolley but you will be made to think about the decision".
There you go- in the future even a shopping trolley will tell you how to think. Potentially your last vestige of responsibility will be surrendered to an ugly tangle of wire and wheels that spends its time directing you to the salad bar and tut-tutting at the Pringles. If you try to buy fags, it'll almost certainly turn on you as if in a Terry Gilliam animation.
Actually, now I ponder it, this doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Looking after yourself and taking responsibility for your actions is, as we all know, bloody hard work- who hasn't slaved over an iron and a toaster in the morning before slogging it to a job when we all know it'd be much easier to stay in bed and live entirely on a diet of Smirnoff Ice? I recently joined a gym in an effort to get in shape and, in two short months I've replaced a life of injury free slobbishness with one leg that alternates between aches and stabbing pains, the other leg that's given up the ghost altogether, a shoulder that screams with agony in the cold and a back which is flummoxed by such strenuous activity as sitting down. And I'm paying money and giving up my precious time to feel like this! Beforehand I had that cash to spend on my free and easy evenings sitting in front of Freeview eating lard flavour gourmet crisps.
Now I'm pretty sure that if a shopping trolley was forcing me to go through all this punishment at the gym I'd feel much better about it. Sure my self-esteem might be affected by my life being controlled by a metal cart with a wonky wheel but that's a small price to pay for not having to worry that I might be doing the wrong thing. In this situation I just blindly follow the trolley and if it get's anything wrong and I accidentally find myself in hospital or dangling from Gloucester Cathedral dressed as Idi Amin then I can just blame the technology. Then ask it how I get down.
I could do with something like this because the real world confuses me at the best of times. For instance, we have the smoking ban. The basic principle of this, as far as I can gather, is that all smokers in a pub should go outside to suck on the demon weed so that the non-smokers can experience some fresh air. However, if it's fresh air they want, why isn't it the non-smokers who go outside? There, if recent studies are to be believed, they'll find shitloads of it. Meanwhile, we smokers can suckle on Mother Marlboro's tarry teat in the sort of smoggy den we all love. Instead the people who want to breathe clean air are now wafting in the smell of stale beer and chip fat whilst all the smokers are outside polluting Mother Nature with a pack of L&B's.
And that confuses me.
Add to that the music charts, 95% of all television, David Miliband, David Miliband's brother whose name I keep forgetting, mobile phones as ghetto blasters, the colour pink as a cornerstone of male fashion, why Jimmy Page now looks like my Grandma and Cheshire and it's clear to see that a sizeable portion of modern living leaves me clutching at the very edge of understanding like a man drowning in treacle.
No, scratch that- olive oil, not treacle. My trolley says treacle's bad for me.
The company behind all this, who go by the chillingly vague name of 'EDS', issued a quote for the piece which ranks as one of the most sinister utterances ever printed in a British newspaper: "It may not stop you putting cream cakes in the trolley but you will be made to think about the decision".
There you go- in the future even a shopping trolley will tell you how to think. Potentially your last vestige of responsibility will be surrendered to an ugly tangle of wire and wheels that spends its time directing you to the salad bar and tut-tutting at the Pringles. If you try to buy fags, it'll almost certainly turn on you as if in a Terry Gilliam animation.
Actually, now I ponder it, this doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Looking after yourself and taking responsibility for your actions is, as we all know, bloody hard work- who hasn't slaved over an iron and a toaster in the morning before slogging it to a job when we all know it'd be much easier to stay in bed and live entirely on a diet of Smirnoff Ice? I recently joined a gym in an effort to get in shape and, in two short months I've replaced a life of injury free slobbishness with one leg that alternates between aches and stabbing pains, the other leg that's given up the ghost altogether, a shoulder that screams with agony in the cold and a back which is flummoxed by such strenuous activity as sitting down. And I'm paying money and giving up my precious time to feel like this! Beforehand I had that cash to spend on my free and easy evenings sitting in front of Freeview eating lard flavour gourmet crisps.
Now I'm pretty sure that if a shopping trolley was forcing me to go through all this punishment at the gym I'd feel much better about it. Sure my self-esteem might be affected by my life being controlled by a metal cart with a wonky wheel but that's a small price to pay for not having to worry that I might be doing the wrong thing. In this situation I just blindly follow the trolley and if it get's anything wrong and I accidentally find myself in hospital or dangling from Gloucester Cathedral dressed as Idi Amin then I can just blame the technology. Then ask it how I get down.
I could do with something like this because the real world confuses me at the best of times. For instance, we have the smoking ban. The basic principle of this, as far as I can gather, is that all smokers in a pub should go outside to suck on the demon weed so that the non-smokers can experience some fresh air. However, if it's fresh air they want, why isn't it the non-smokers who go outside? There, if recent studies are to be believed, they'll find shitloads of it. Meanwhile, we smokers can suckle on Mother Marlboro's tarry teat in the sort of smoggy den we all love. Instead the people who want to breathe clean air are now wafting in the smell of stale beer and chip fat whilst all the smokers are outside polluting Mother Nature with a pack of L&B's.
And that confuses me.
Add to that the music charts, 95% of all television, David Miliband, David Miliband's brother whose name I keep forgetting, mobile phones as ghetto blasters, the colour pink as a cornerstone of male fashion, why Jimmy Page now looks like my Grandma and Cheshire and it's clear to see that a sizeable portion of modern living leaves me clutching at the very edge of understanding like a man drowning in treacle.
No, scratch that- olive oil, not treacle. My trolley says treacle's bad for me.