Denis Kilcommons: Stuck in a time warp

Oct 19 2009 by Denis Kilcommons

THERE are times when I think I may have slipped into an alternative universe or perhaps fallen asleep for 30 years and have suddenly awakened to be confused by the English language.

Take that advertisement on television where a bloke holds up what I thought was a mobile phone but is, apparently, an iPhone.

He touches symbols on the screen and can suddenly check out cinema times, navigate his way up the Orinoco, play chess, and arrange a time and place to meet Sweet Sugar Dumpling using Chubby Chaser Dating.co.uk. (And yes, there really is such a website).

“There’s an app for that,” he says.

Pardon? I have asked for weeks.

What did he say? There’s an ad for that?

I have just discovered, he said “app”. And apps are “applications” that you can add on to these small gadgets of wondrous delight to make life more enjoyable for technocrats in this modern world of ours. Even though I can’t see them making life enjoyable at all.

So why do they use them?

Because they can.

I have a chum who has a Blackberry and he annoys me by using it during conversations. I’ll recommend to him a book I have read and he will check out its title and author on screen and buy it from Amazon. All within the space of a minute and while continuing to talk and hardly pausing for breath except to show me when the transaction is complete.

Why does he do it?

Because he can. And he could order a pizza and play chess and arrange a date with Sweet Sugar Dumpling, if he was so inclined. Better make that two pizzas, extra large with fries. I think I'll go to sleep for 30 years. By the time I wake up,. The world might make more sense.