Stupid technology....

If you are one of those parents who needs to know every aspect of your child’s existence when they venture beyond your line of vision then inventors in Japan might be rolling right up your street.
An experiment currently running there is allowing full-time working parents the opportunity to watch every aspect of their little darling’s day while they are allegedly hard at work – you know checking Facebook and shopping on Amazon.
These suspicious mums and dads can not only know the exact location of their offspring, but a camera connected to a heart monitor will take a snapshot of what their youngster is seeing should their pulse rise to a level indicating that they might be under stress.
The Japanese say that the data from the brilliantly named ‘gyroscopic accelerometer’, GPS device and compass can only be accessed through a password-protected website which contains live updates of the kid’s play – pictures and all. Future designs will also include a microphone, which will mean parents can eavesdrop on conversations also.
The manufacturers say these devices will start at £400 a pop, more if you want a microphone. So for a mere £1,200 I can listen to my boys discuss loudly the merits of Red Power Ranger over Spiderman at school as well as at home, complete with pictures of them whopping each other over the head with schoolbags and large branches. I can wince as I watch them tussle violently with their mates like mini World Wrestling Federation players in the playground or tune in to see them jump from high walls or trees.
This is what I imagine they do of a day, this new technology could reveal their true lifes – my boys could well be criminal masterminds, hustling dinner money from classmates and throwing thinly veiled threats around like confetti.
It will also save me asking about their day when school’s out which will be a big plus. Today these conversations go a little like this.
“Hello darling son, I’m delighted to see you. School is really too long, I missed your smiling face.”
Grunt.
“How was your day son?”
Shrugs shoulders.
“The school curriculum really is fantastically choc-a-bloc with all things educational. What did you do all day?”
“Nothing”.
“What did you get for lunch in that delightful establishment one calls the canteen?”
“Crisps”.
“I imagine we have loads of fascinating homework to complete tonight eh?”
“Shut up”.
All this new technology is all well and good when it works in your favour, but when it hampers your very existence it’s not so hot.
A few days ago I took the passenger side off our car when I had a tussle with a trolley bay in a supermarket. The thing just jumped out at me from nowhere. I dented the two doors badly and left a considerable amount of stone silver paint behind as a reminder of how women shouldn’t really be allowed to operate machinery any more technologically taxing than a vacuum cleaner.
Yesterday I decided that since the kids were off school for half term I’d have a nice day, go off the air and head for the park. I packed the car with all the stuff one needs when heading to the park with four kids – tent, puncture kit, first aid supplies, pram, tranquiliser dart and gun, substantial refreshments, mountain of wipes, vast amounts of money, mountain rescue contact numbers, nappies, sheep dog etc – and put all the kids in as well.
The car wouldn’t start. It made a ticking noise and a sign screamed ‘Engine Malfunction, Engine Malfunction!!’
You see the car is one of those fancy pants hi-tech vehicles that flashes instructions to tell you what’s wrong. It has also been known to shout some of them in an annoying computer voice, presumably for the benefit of blind drivers.
So I took all the kids out and phoned the mechanic – who is tellingly on speed dial. The guy came out and asked me if I was the wife of that poor, long-suffering man who has no end to car troubles. I said I most probably was.
He asked me if I was the one who accidentally blew up her husband’s car in the town centre one Christmas. I said I was. He asked me if I was the one who had an almost magnetic attraction to gates and gateposts, mysteriously burnt out five clutches and if it was me who crashed into her father’s car in his own driveway. I said I was.
After assessing and presumably having a conversation with the car he told me that due to the fact that I had crashed into yet another inanimate object the door’s hi-tech sensors were damaged. He says the car had spent all Sunday night and the early hours of Monday morning shouting and flashing at no one in particular that ‘This door is damaged and won’t close properly’, ‘this door, this one here, won’t close and it’s making me anxious’, ‘This door!!! Won’t close!! Wasting the battery, Arggghhhh!!’ The result being that unless we spend ‘big, big money’ on two new doors we’ll have to jumpstart the car every time we go out.
So it looks like I’ll have to use the cash I had wished to spend on super spy technology on stupid car technology instead.