read me

My sister asked me to order my niece a Kindle as she hasn't got an amazon account.

I actually didn’t know what it was until then.
Now I keep seeing the adverts for them on the TV, clearly meant to demonstrate how convenient they are but the bit that concerns me is the woman on her bike with it in the basket on the front.

Aren’t you supposed to be watching where you’re going ?
Who in their right mind is gonna be reading a fucking book whilst riding a bike.
That’s just asking for trouble, if I get run over by a demented bookworm on a bike I’m gonna sue Amazon.

And yes, in case anyone thinks I’m stupid I do realise that the point of that is to show how portable the thing is…..Wow ! How original.
Yeah ‘cos nobody ever realised you could take a book anywhere did they.
Thing is I know what I’m like when I get my nose stuck in a good book, I don’t want to put it down. However the fact that I need my hands to ride a bike and/or hold a book means that I can’t do both at the same time.
Now if only someone would invent a hands free book…..oh wait….yup, bad idea.

What are they gonna invent next - a device to install Kindle on your Sat Nav ?
Oh sorry Officer, I didn’t see the little old lady crossing the road because Harry Potter was just about to kiss Hermione.

Personally I don’t think a Kindle can ever replace a real paper book.
I love to read a good story but there is also something about the smell of a new book, or even an old one.
And no matter how old fashioned it becomes I will never tire of thumbing through pages.

I still have some of the books I read with Son when he was little, had they been on a hard drive no doubt by now the files would’ve been deleted and replaced or lost on a crashed device.

I plan to read those books with my granchildren one day.

I really don’t see how a small grey electronic screen could ever replace a brightly illustrated children’s book.
Kids learn the stories through the pictures and that is the first step to reading, associating words with pictures and then beginning to mentally connect sounds with letters.


You’re never going to do that unless you can capture and hold their attention and I don’t think a Kindle will do that for a three year old.
It doesn’t do it for me and I’m way past the age when I need pictures in a book to follow the story.

Well unless it’s porn.


As much as I appreciate the technology available now I do think that we are in danger of losing out. It’s nice to get emails but for me there is still something special about a hand written letter that can never be replaced.
I had a friend that died in the tsunami in Thailand and I have a letter that she wrote to me whilst travelling. I treasure that letter, had she sent me an email I might still have it saved but I would not see her writing or be able to hold something she had touched and keep it in my box of memories.

I’m sure that servicemen and women appreciate a handwritten letter far more then an email too. I know you can recieve an email the minute it's sent, as long as you have access to your email account of course. But you can’t carry it with you or keep it under your pillow and read by torchlight if you’re feeling homesick, lonely or just because you want to. And if you have childen who are too young to use a computer they can't send you a scribble or a drawing by email.

The other thing that concerns me is whether having access to so much technology is actually going to have an adverse effect on the education of our children. Who needs to learn to spell correctly when spellcheck can do it for you, or when you and your mates converse lyk dis.
There was no text speak until teenagers all got mobile phones.

When there is so much information readily available online at any time will we get to a point where people think there is no need to actually learn anything, other then how to turn a computer on in order to ask google. I suppose that isn’t always a bad thing, I have to be honest here and say that nowadays if there is something I want to find out it’s usually the first place I look. However there is also a lot of misinformation on the internet, any idiot can have a website and put whatever garbage they want on it.

Fuck sake even I have one now, and look at the amount of crap I put on it.

But I do worry that we are too reliant on the new gadgets and in danger of forgetting basic skills.
Many years ago I worked in a nightclub and we had to total up the cost of drinks in our heads, and give out the right change. And the rule was if your till was out by more than a pound you were sacked. Our tills were usually spot on to the penny when cashed up at the end of the night.
Nowadays you wouldn’t even need to enter an amount - just press the button for the drinks ordered and the till does it for you, any idiot could do it.

Last week I was in the Supermarket and there were two young lads in front of me, as they were getting served they asked the shop idiot assistant if they would be able to use their cards to pay half each.

When their bill was totalled it came to £104.50. She said
“that’s ….ummm…..errrr…….” after two very painful minutes one of the lads said,
“£52.25”… to which she replied,
“are you sure ?” and got a pen and then spent another two minutes trying to check.

Fucking hell, how thick ?
Even I worked that sum out the minute she said it and I am SHIT at maths.
I was trying not to laugh, as was one of the lads but when I caught his eye he had to turn his back.

Clearly you don’t need any level of even the most basic education to work in Tescos, which is good news for the dumbasses of the world I suppose. But where is the incentive to learn to add up in the first place if you always have a calculator to do it for you.

Fine I suppose until your batteries run out.

Or there’s a power cut.
Then you’re screwed.

I'll just get a candle and read a book.