Originally written on Tuesday, 17. April 2007.

When Stevenson saw the fruit of his labours finally hit the tracks, there were serious reservations that, should the confounded contraption ever, heaven forbid, exceed ten miles / hour, your brain would melt and seep out of your ears, your insides would become your outsides, your eyes would spin and the world would cease to exist almost immediately.

Of course, this did not happen, and now, for less than the price of a small house, it is possible to buy an internal combustion engine, wrapped up in some pretty swish look steel that will propel at least two people, in relative comfort, at well over 200 mph. Not only that, but this marvel of carbon combustion will also play your entire music collection through 36 individual speakers, will tell you where to go and how to get there, has heated seats, air conditioning more efficient than most domestic fridges, traction control, low profile tyres so slick they may as well have been painted on and some, heaven forbid, even come with child seats.

The modern car is as about as far away from it’s spiritual father, which so terrified the people of England over 150 years ago, as it is possible to be. Well, actually, it is not. The modern car is not really that different from the ‘horseless carriage’ that Daimler built in Germany in the latter part of the 19th century. Yes, it is more efficient. Yes, it is faster, and yes, it keeps your feet out of the puddles. However , it still takes black 200 million year old sludge out from underneath the ground and turns it into black, acrid smoke that pollutes just about everywhere it makes an appearance.

Yet despite that, we crave the automobile and we salivate over technology. Computers, mobile phones, portable music players, mobile phones that are music players and music players that are mobile phones. The internet is connecting more people from more places than ever before. The internet is also responsible for wasting more time with more and more frivolous rubbish than it has been possible to produce in the last one thousand years.

When Logie invented the television he envisaged a world of knowledge, of science and education. He envisaged a world where the small monochrome world would be the carrier of enlightenment, of knowledge and wonder. He never dreamed, not once, of gardening programmes.

Now, however, we have the capability of watching the banal Hollywood films on the tiniest of screens, beamed to us, where ever we are, through the ether, to a supine audience baying for ever more flaccid and puerile entertainment. The mobile phone, the logical evolution of the most natural form of communication is also responsible for the biggest abuse of language since the letter ‘u’ was left out of the word ‘colour’!

The word ‘text’ is a noun. However, it has become a verb. Texting, the art of sending written messages over the wireless mobile phone networks, has evolved into a language all of it’s own, one which is alien to 99% of the population, and one which, when looked at in the cold light of day, makes very little sense at all. Every word is abbreviated down to, and beyond in some cases, it’s most basic components. Even the name itself has become a synonym for it’s own ghastly existence. txting. The vowel was put there for a reason.!

Technology can be, and often is, a wondrous thing. But there are times when the absence of technology can lift the soul, can elevate the spirit. Imagine a place, with wonderful rolling hills, with a stream meandering through the small copse at the foot of the hill and relaxing it is to know that your mobile phone simply is not going to work. The cackle and crackle of an open fire, a long fork to toast a slice thick brown bread rather than the expensive, stylish Starck toaster sitting pride and place in the centre of the minimalist Italian made kitchen.

A book, not an e-book, paper, not a computer screen, the joy of a camera with Ilford monochrome film, rather than the transfer of an SD card from the 10 mega pixel digital camera. For that matter, the thrill and excitement of receiving your pictures back from the developers and reliving the moment for a second time, rather than the instant gratification that comes in the current, non stop 24/7 e-world.

The irony of this article is, however, will not be lost on you. Technology gives us the ability to be able to share what we want with those with whom we wish to share. You are reading this now because of the Silicon High Priestess. She allows the pictures on this site, that were created digitally, loaded electronically, to be transferred through the interconnecting, almost invisible, world of the backbone teleco’s to appear, almost as soon as I submit it, on your screen. Nothing really exists in this virtual world of bits and bytes, of IP addresses and 1 and 0’s.

But on the back of this world of nothing, nothing real, vast fortunes have been built for companies who supply more and more nothing who provide access to more and more nothing. Real world companies have to build real world infrastructure. The utilities have to have a system of pipes, connectors, counters, all backed up with investment and planning so that, when you flick that small white switch by the door, the light bulb does the one thing that it is supposed to do, light up.

However, the new wave of virtual companies, the search engines, the social sites, the digital storage sites live and grow by provide more and more access to more and more nothing, to more and more people demanding more and more nothing. When you thing about it, it is an amazing business model. Persuade the telco’s to invest millions, if not billions of pounds becoming ‘bit carriers’ so that the virtual companies, who link the content hungry audience with more and more non real items.

Think about it. A search engine. A single page front end, brought to your desk top by dozens of interconnecting telco’s, to show information you can’t touch, you can’t hold. And as soon as it there it is gone, replaced by an advert you don’t want on your screen for a product you don’t want in your home.

The truth is though, that these virtual companies are driven by demand. So it is supplied. And the more of it that is supplied, the more demand there is for similar ‘me too’ product. This is the world we have because this is the world we want and therefore the world we create.

The old adage says that we get the press that we deserve. The new adage says that we get the virtual world we crave. This is a technology driven world, for better or for worse.

The silver lining ? When all this technology is not available, and there is silence from the wailing of a novelty ring tone, the world becomes a much more peaceful place. Even if only for a few minutes.