I genuinely worry about the people you see walking down the street glued to their phones. No matter how inappropriate the setting; busy central London tube station in the rush hour, travellers moving in all directions at once, and there’s a ‘tosser’ staring at his stupid fucking screen with a set of studio-quality speakers attached to both ears, expecting everyone to avoid his oblivious presence. And why I worry about them is because I really would like to kill them. But we know that. I have a thing about them. Selfish individuals so obsessed with their online presence that they forget their actual reality. Tossers. We all know them. Some of you ARE them! (You know who you are). But what about the next generation?

And here I have conducted an extensive (1 person), longitudinal (almost 14 month), rather obsessive study on the subject. The official title of the research is: An investigation into the post-natal effects of digitalisation on the development and wellbeing of neo-nates. The unofficial title is ‘Lila’.

Her mum was (and remains) a bit obsessive about many thinks concerning her babe. My babe. And one of her (many) ‘things’ was that Lila sees no tv. Other than occasionally football when Lila’s dad and me turn it on and hide the remote. This is a good thing. Let the child ‘read’. Or chew books, rather than screens. Let her play with good things rather than learn to veg out in front of a screen.

But somewhere down the line it all went pear shaped. As all best intentions generally do. At some point, when things were ‘down’ (all mum’s know such moments, dads too), Lila was shown a video clip on Mum’s phone. A Disney clip. From the movie ‘Frozen’. And Lila, who had generally ignored the tv when it was on after about 20 seconds, was transfixed. Crying for more. Ok, she bashes whatever screen she’s looking at until all the windows shut down or accidentally fires up the Uber app and orders a taxi to go to the Czech republic, but the thing is SHE KNOWS WHAT TO DO. And now, at 14 months, she knows not to touch it too much or her song vanishes.

And she’s learned that in a very short time. To the extent that mum & dad now have to ensure there are no phones or ipads around when Lila wakes up or that’s all she wants. In their absence Lila plays with anything, loves her books and acts like a ‘normal’, pre-techno baby. But if she see’s even a dead screen, she wants Frozen. To which she talks, rocks back and forth, dances and loves it so much that it takes all my energy and commitment not to just play it end-to-end for a whole day.

14 months old. What hope is there?

Off to Russia tomorrow. OMG! Its arrived. Or we’ll arrive. I’ve gone on the government website and will follow their advice. Turn up as a great fat man with tatoos, swear and shout and sing as if blind drunk and ensure I have a Cross of St George flag draped round my shoulders at all times. What could possibly go wrong?

Happy Friday

A xxxx