Hard-hitting IT columnist Simon Moores gives his personal take on
the hot issue of the day.The large white sign ahead said Espanha
and, thinking that it might offer a more direct route out of
Portugal back across the Spanish border, I ignored the directions
on the motorcycle tank-bag in front of me and left the main
road.
Fifty miles of winding country road later, we found ourselves on
the Spanish side of the border in an oven-like expanse of plain. No
cars, no people and a shaky idea of where we were on the map.
I guessed that my big BMW Adventurer had around 50 miles of fuel
left in its tank and my wife was dreaming of a quick divorce.
"Don't worry," I said. "Although we seem to have fallen off the GPS
map, there's a town 30km ahead of us and if we get there, we can
rejoin the main road at Ciudad Rodrigo."
I had resolved to leave all my gadgets behind on this trip, with my
only luxury being my phone. But when the time came, I failed the
character test and smuggled my iPAQ and its foldaway keyboard into
my luggage, which is how I can type this column in my room at the
500-year-old Parador hotel set in the cathedral square at Santo
Domingo De La Calzada.
Not thinking that GPRS coverage would be anywhere near extensive on
my trip through Spain and Portugal, I left my Blackberry behind,
which was a mistake, because GPRS appears to be active in the
strangest places and the Vodafone service reaches into the medieval
heart of Spain.
It's incongruous, though, to think that in some of the places that
we passed through today, the Internet is a meaningless concept to
all but a very few.
And yet, with all the talk of "information societies" and "digital
divides" in the EU government conferences I have taken part in, the
reality is that the Internet doesn't appear to matter greatly to
most people on the Continent and you can't blame them either!
In Europe lunch still takes two hours, e-mail (if you have such a
thing) can wait and the locals contrast sharply with the overworked
and stressed English tourists, separated from their in-boxes and
worrying about the hundreds of unanswered messages piling-up in
their absence.
Jeremy Clarkson touched upon the problem in his documentary on our
European neighbours. The British are in love with speed. Fast cars,
fast food and fast communications - the instant hot water of the
21st century.
Much like the presence of the TV licence fee and the NHS, we don't
really have a choice in the matter and, in contrast with the more
laid-back Spanish, our growing national passion for e-mail and the
Internet leaves us looking very like Eric, my daughter's hamster,
hopelessly addicted to running on his wheel.
Can there be such a thing as a compromise, a co-existence between
the insistent and intrusive digital world of the GPRS-connected
iPAQ in front of me and the contemplative medieval scene outside my
window?
If you worry about your e-mail while you're on holiday, then you
already know the answer.
What do you think?
Are electronic gizmos making the
British neurotic?
Let us know with an e-mail >>CW360.com
reserves the right to edit and publish answers on the Web site.
Please state if your answer is not for publication.ZentelligenceSetting the world to rights with the collected thoughts and
opinions of the futurist writer, broadcaster and Computer Weekly
columnist Simon Moores.