Satnav is just another sodding screen to demand our attention. We leave our computers, occasionally, walk around staring at smart phones and then get in the car. And turn on the satnav. Well, you probably do. I get in with a map. And notes. Scribbled down from some direction site and relating to places I know. Because I resent satnavs and what they represent. I hate the fact that you’re just getting into American Girl and when Tom Petty implores: “take it easy, baby. Make it last all ni- IN 5O YARDS, TURN RIGHT!!” Oh just piss off, you told me that 300 yards ago, 200 yards ago and 100 yards ago, you’re like the worst, nagging wife in the whole world, now SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Yet they have a place, satnavs. Mainly when you’re going somewhere far and exotic, like Putney, or Oldham, and you haven’t been before. My girls had satnavs for their 18th birthday presents. At which point they simply stopped noticing where they were driving. Neither can now make it to the end of the road without assistance from the satellites.

But satnav is soon to become old news, yesterday’s toy, this generations 8-track, betamax, tape cassette, Leeds United kind of thing. Historical amusement value only. Because (apparently) you get ‘black spots’ when the satellite is blocked out and the instructions stop and you get lost. Which is tragic. Even though no-one I know who uses those things ever complains about it. Scientists are now working on, and have perfected, the quantum compass. Sounds impressive, its full of colliding atoms and physics shit, like a mini CERN for home use, and its 1000 times more accurate than satnav. How they arrive at 1000 times is beyond anyone without a PhD in particle mechanics and psycho-pedantics.

Now isn’t that fantastic news. The compass is currently 1 metre long and very heavy. Perfect for using on a bike. And I hate to imagine the cost. So don’t go throwing away your 75-quid Tom-Tom, which is 3 inches long and weighs nothing, just yet. Surely it can’t take long to minimise this thing. I mean, how big’s an atom?

Charlotte Leslie, MP for Bristol-somewhere, was, in a former life, a lifeguard. And a pretty damned fit one at that. Can I say that? Without accusations of chauvinism? misogyny? sexism? Rolph Harrisism? Anyway, she reckons that the skills she learned out there in the waves serve her well as a member of parliament in Westminster. Which I reckon is true. I mean, what is being part of the conservative party machine if not the saving of drowning men. If they’re not drowning under the weight of public scorn over expense claims, then they’re drowning under a heap of their own rhetoric and bullshit. Whatever floats her float.

Happy Friday

A xxxx