Thursday, January 28, 2010

novelty, see-through, freedom



Posted by PicasaReflections.
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Peering out from the roofs of a row of houses are dormer windows. Through the windows, because the sun is shining in, you can see sloping attic roofs and beyond, other windows giving on to views of the sky, chimneys and rooftops. It is an unexpected sighting of another part of the world or perhaps of a different world.
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Like many other people I watch with fascination as Steve Jobs reveals Apple's latest piece of technology - The Ipad. It is, I suppose, a computer the size of a book with limitless access to actual books and newspapers, all screen and touch. But what I most like about it is that I don't want it. I don't need it. And that is a relief to me because I can be as acquisitive as the next man. And in theory it would be wonderful to possess anything so nifty. Not wanting an Ipad or an Iphone, for that matter, is a sort of freedom. When I am not at home or at my desk, I like to look about me and see what is going on. At home there is a laptop and that is enough to keep me in touch with.the virtual world. Meanwhile, I like to talk and listen to the people I meet in the real world. Multi-tasking may be useful if you engaged in a war or a love affair, but, free of the demands of either, I am fortunate in having time to do just one thing at a time.

4 comments:

The Crow said...

There, in the black skirt...is that your reflection?

If so, might one suggest that you've committed a drive-by shooting?

(Okay...okay...that was an atrocious pun. I'll take the 20 lashes without complaint.)

Roderick Robinson said...

There is a similar pleasure to be gained from buying the Radio Times. All those programmes, some famous enough to have strayed into the main news pages of The Guardian, some rubbishy enough to have attracted the rubbishy epithet "iconic" - none of which I've seen. More important, none of which I'm tempted to see. One of them, no longer extant, I believe has the perfect title to ensure I would never watch it: "Men behaving badly".

Unknown said...

Crow: Could be. But I was on foot.

BB: Unfortunately curiousity drives me to investigate programmes which my better judgement tell me to avoid. Were it not for Heidi who has more discrimination than I, I would turn my attention to almost everything listed in the Radio Times at least once. My excuse would be that those that become "iconic" (I agree a term to be avoided)should be investigated because they shape and are part of our shared culture. I use culture in its widest anthroplogical sense.

Lucy said...

I do like your shop window ladies.

I agree about not wanting things, and with BB about not wanting to watch. I am happily ignorant of almost all of the genre known as 'reality', which perhaps extends further than the TV. It could also mean culture in the laboratory sense, as in nasty things in petri dishes.