Unnecessary necessities
Inventions that cure social ills
Inventions that revolutionise society seem to sneak up on us and before we even learn to pronounce the absurdly pneumonic names these curiosities are christened with, they have become a requirement rather than an option. Microwaves, word processors, internet and email, mobile phones and home espresso machines. Hard to think of life before them, eh?
Last month the office I was working at in central London lost its internet for a week thanks to a piece of grand bureaucratic negligence on the part of British Telecom. Hastening our trip into the Dark Ages, the UK was hit by a postal strike—the sort of malevolent coincidence this country specialises in, such as cold weather and bad television. Yet we didn’t all curl up into balls beneath our desks and wail but managed to get done what needed to be done. This has led me to the notion that technology has been marching in the wrong direction and needs to take an abrupt left turn so that inventions that really make a difference get invented.
A start would be a device that detects bores at parties. It could fit discreetly inside the ear and bark out warnings like ‘paisley shirt hogging the fondue—self-obsessed currency trader—collects odd-shaped house bricks as a hobby’, saving you from unnecessary conversations. Another would be a machine that compressed and expanded time, so you could stretch it out like the horizon when you are sitting on a surfboard with the sun on your back and the swell full and constant, and shorten it to the blink of an eye during meetings on how to cut stationery costs. Even better would be a new car that doesn’t ding at you when you leave the door open, forget to turn the lights off, or prevent you taking a sideways look at a pretty girl walking.
The only problem is how to get a logo on all of these.
Jon Greenaway
Waiting time
Letter from broome
Along every street in Old Broome, pinky-green mangoes dangle on long stems, clustered in sixes and sevens. This morning I woke to the sound of my neighbours shaking the lower branches of their enormous tree, and the soft plop of half-ripe mangoes on the dust. They tell me that in a few weeks I will be sick of the sight of them, and of the rich smell of rotting fruit lining the nature strips. The fruit is