… the need for speeeeeed…

How fast is ‘fast enough’? Hmmmm. Is my car fast enough or do I need a new 400 horse power monster so I can break the law with much greater ease or have 335 wasted and redundant horses sitting there ‘just in case’? Is my bicycle fast enough or do I need a hokey-kokey 2000 model with inbuilt leg-shaving facility? Then one of the 2 ‘BIG QUESTIONS’ of our time. How quickly do I need to get to Birmingham by train? Because the quicker you get there the more time you have to spend there. Never a good thing.

Yet these questions relate to ‘speed’ in the material world. Where, sadly, humans spend less and less time. So the other of those ‘BIG QUESTIONS’ is by far the most important. How fast do I need my WiFi to be?

To 5G or not to 5G, that is the real question. And we have to decide by Tuesday whether to sign the deal with Huawei to instal it for us. If we go with the Chinese giants, we’ll all be enjoying 5G by Thursday morning. Well, maybe a bit longer. Its ‘ready to run’, almost. Whereas if we yield to the quite massive pressure by the Americans and sever our ties with that company, merely on the grounds that to sign contracts with them would be basically selling all of our national security secrets to China for nothing, then by the time us and Yanks devise our own system, the rest of the world will probably be enjoying 8G. Even 9!

I want to get from where I am to where I wish to walk, I press ‘google maps’ on my phone and it takes about 3 seconds before its there, all pictorial and dotted lined. Of course, no amount of Gs will have me walking in the right direction but that’s not the issue. I can stand at the tube in the morning and read my emails, quickly and easily. Attachments open easily. Virtually instantly. So what, exactly, will 5G do for me? I don’t want to download Kill Bill 1 and 2 at the bus stop, nor watch a match of the day stream.

They intend not to let Huawei near Westminster nor any military installations. Oh well, that’ll stop ‘em. Like, its not really all linked up, is it? We’ll be safe from President Xi. Yeah, right.

The HS2 high speed rail link is another kettle of very speedy fish altogether. We need something because the existing train lines are old, shitty and unreliable. And if you’re replacing it seems stupid not to upgrade and improve. But the cost. Sorry, the COST!!!!! Over a hundred billion quid and rising daily. They should use those Irish ‘travellers’ who fitted my driveway. They’d do it for 2 million. In cash, obvs. And not much in the way of ‘guarantees’, other than the certainty that it’ll fall apart in 2 years, but its great value.

These are indeed big questions. Big test for Boris.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx