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Neil Hudson: Net loss
Why are we all still in love with the internet? I'd love to be the internet for a day.
I'd get to sleep in, turn up late to work, then basically not do anything properly all day long.
If my boss came over to speak to me, I'd just suddenly freeze for no apparant reason, like that statues game you used to play when you were a kid... like the internet does to millions of people every day.
If I spoke to anyone, I'd just suddenly stop mid-sentence, or get stuck on a word.
So, my boss would be like: 'Neil, how's that column coming along?' And I would say back: 'Yes, thanks, my colllllllllllllllllll----------llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll---------------."
And I'd just sit there, staring blankly ahead, eyes transfixed on the nothingness, stuck on the letter 'L', while my boss gives me one of those 'what's happening?' looks.
Then, maybe just for added effect, I'd produce an egg timer from under the desk and just keep turning it over and over and over. And over.
Stuck on the letter 'L', for like minutes on end.
Survey
When someone eventually did get me working again, I'd ask them repeatedly if they wanted to take a quick survey. Or just keep getting the egg timer out.
Because that's what the internet does.
Seriously, why does it take so long to do anything on the net?
I was under the impression computers worked using electricity which, as far as I am aware, travels at the speed of light. So even if a web page had to travel all the way from the sun, it should only take eight seconds.
My computer works at the speed of those men who dig holes in the road.
Even when a page does load up, it doesn't load up all at once, it does so in bits and then sometimes gets stuck half way through.
It's like walking into a take-away, ordering a pizza and having the man lob a piece of crust over the counter, then a bit later throw you a chunk of pineapple, then a bit later still, fling a piece of ham over. Then, finally, lean over and tell you the oven's gone kaput.
Torn
Trying to find anything on the internet is like walking into your local library to hire a book to find someone has torn all the pages out of all the books and thrown them into a big pile on the floor.
And what's with all these millions of 'hits'? Why oh why do I need two million answers every time I ask a question?
Example: I typed 'Welsh mountains' into Google and guess how many results it got? 1,980,000. Who is ever going to have time to browse nearly two million websites?
Typing in 'Welsh mountains' should throw back about five hits, maximum. Anything else is ludicrous. I mean, how much is there to write about Welsh mountains? There are several, they're in Wales, they're big and people wearing wax jackets get stuck up them. What else is there to know?
Toddlers and heavy traffic don't mix
I can understand the concept, I can even sympathise with the inventor – and perhaps 200 years ago, the toddler trailer for bicycles might have been a good, and safe, idea.
Not today.
One can understand well-to-do parents wanting to take their kiddies for a nice bicycle ride down the canal towpath, or around the smooth tarmacadam paths of a leafy park.
What I cannot countenance is any parent even contemplating putting their children inside one of these contraptions and taking it on a public road.
The other day I came upon a line of traffic. We eventually discovered the cause – a parent on a bicycle with a toddler trailer in tow struggling up a hill and weaving dangerously across the road.
I wasn't even bothered about the hold-up. What I was bothered about was the safety of the little kid, sitting helplessly inside the flimsy cart.
Accidents happen. Drivers are careless and today's roads are simply too busy to be taking chances with the lives of innocent children.
The disposable heroes of hip-hop
I'm cool, I'm hot, I'm wearing sunglasses. I'm surrounded by scantily-clad gyrating women in super-tight lingerie.
I'm driving a ridiculously fast car and throwing cool shapes with my hands and fingers, none of which mean anything in the real world. I'm still wearing sunglasses but occasionally peeking over the top of them.
That's right, I am a hip-hop video. Any hip-hop video. They are all the same!
In terms of genre, today's hip-hop is about as original as a Les Dawson gag. It's a real shame, too, because hip-hop used to be innovative and new and it had a positive influence on other muscial genres.
Now it's just a bunch of blokes pretending they grew up in socially deprived areas when in fact they're more likely to be middle-class boys wearing massive padded jackets to make themselves look tough.
Real rap had passion, it had angst, it had a message. It even, arguably, shone a light on what was a previously unaddressed social problem: that of disaffected black youths.
Without groups like NWA and artists like Ice T, there would be no Real Slim Shady, no Dr Dre, no Fiddy Cent, no N-Dubz.
It's just a shame rap has descended into such a lazy cliche.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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