A trifecta of absurdities

1.

I was perfectly happy with the idea of a communicative wrist-watch as envisaged in the Dick Tracy comic strip back when I was a twelve-year-old schoolboy. But the iWatch launched yesterday leaves me cold. For a start I have still not seen the need for a smartphone of any kind. I am delighted that when I leave the flat I am essentially offline, still reachable by SMS or a call to my ancient cellphone. And there is for me the added consideration that my eyesight does not allow me to use such miniaturized interfaces comfortably. In fact, the only thing I envy Dick Tracy is his Fedora. That I think would suit me well!

2.

My next rant is more nuanced. In Munich there are still days when a high of 20 degrees allows us to enjoy sitting at outside café tables. Pretty girls can still be seen in their short shorts, I note with delight. But I also noted at the beginning of this week that the shelves of my neighbourhood supermarket are already giving space to traditional German bakery specialities of the Christmas season! This I should probably find disgusting, perverse and a further sign of untrammeled commercialization... of, horror! At the same time I am bound to confess that Christstollen is something I absolutely adore and my mid-morning snack will be delicious for the next few months.

3.

At the moment I am overjoyed whenever the telephone rings and there is a voiceover job for me. Yesterday's was amusing. It involved a fifteen-minute film lauding the glorious history of a piece of multi-national European defence technology. An English-language version had already been produced. Note that this was a European achievement. The sound production people had created an international version using voice talent with what they called 'mid-Atlantic' accents. This the client found inappropriate and asked for voicers with British accents... hence the phone call I got on Tuesday evening! Then in the studio I had the chance to listen to the so-called 'mid-Atlantic' segments. What I heard was a delivery which was not only 100% American, but sounded like that of some neo-Con pundits on Fox News! Oops!