Smarting at the machines

9:27am Tuesday 6th May 2008

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LIFE, don't talk to me about life. One of the things that can make me feel just a little bit fed up is having to cope with baffling new technology when trying to do the simplest things.

I mean, with any luck I will never be called on to shut down a nuclear reactor or land a damaged space shuttle, but it's a bit galling to be faced with incomprehensible mechanical twittering and bleeping when all you're trying to do is replace the phone in your living room.

Like many other middle-aged grumpies, I've been told the problem is that I'm getting old and can't cope with the gadgets; an eight-year-old would have it sorted in seconds.

Well, they might. But after setting up a mini-computer for a relative, and installing the aforementioned phone, it strikes me there is a pattern to this hi-tech nightmare.

The machines have become more sophisticated and complicated - and often to absolutely no good or useful purpose. All I wanted was a phone with an answering facility. A decade ago you bought what you wanted, plugged it in and recorded a message. The difference this time was that the machine had a whole host of functions that needed sorting out, most of which I would never, ever, want to use.

The mini-computer was slightly different; in its case the messing about was to introduce a host of extras to ensure it was more "friendly" towards its individual user - such as a background screen shade which matched the owner's favourite colour. All very nice, but hardly a practical necessity.

Am I being overly cynical, but could it be that makers of gadgets and dingbats are adding all these superfluous extras in a desperate attempt to make their products seem new and cutting-edge, when they haven't pushed back the boundaries of what they actually do?

Someone who did push back boundaries was the late Douglas Adams, who reinvigorated the science fiction genre with the humour and perception he brought to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

One of the things he spotted early on was this very tendency of technology to become more and more complex, and less and less useful.

Thus his hero, Arthur Dent, could approach a catering computer which had its very own personality and could engage in pleasant conversation - yet was completely baffled when asked to make a cup of tea. I know how Arthur felt.

MIND you, we may all have other things to worry about soon enough, now that dread word "shortage" has reared its fearful head once more.

It's mainly at the fuel pumps so far, though at least our leaders seem to be looking at the energy situation.

I'm not so sure whether anyone has grasped the food shortage nettle too hard yet - possibly because we are still beset by the problems of plenty (child obesity, bulimia, etc) rather than famine. But that may not last, as competition for food hots up, and we are no longer necessarily the highest bidders in the scramble for what remains.

So what do we do? A little while ago, an expert made a radical suggestion - we should go back to our former policy of trying to be as self-sufficient in food as possible.

This began life with Digging For Victory during the Second World War, but was continued by the post-1945 Labour Government, which encouraged farmers to modernise and increase production. Many years later, the policy lost favour with our rulers, who told bemused farmers that other countries could supply our food much more cheaply, and they would just jolly well have to "compete".

But now the world is changing, and perhaps it's about time we took another look at how we use what's left of our countryside. I even have a catchy slogan to go with this proposal - Digging For Survival.