Normally, I’d be upset by Wycombe losing, but I was strangely calm

9:38am Friday 1st February 2008

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THIS banal picture from my television set is proof my obsession with pointless technology has finally driven me over the edge.

Last week's column was devoted to the fact that modern technology, in the way of a car's sat nav, had caused me to get lost on the way to giving a talk about technology.

So I was determined to talk about something more worthwhile this week such as council tax rises or fear of crime.

But I couldn't get on to my PC at home on Tuesday night to write my piece because Mrs Editor's Chair was doing an online grocery order.

Now online grocery orders are surely the technological spawn of the devil. You spend hours compiling them, wait in for more hours while the delivery driver gets stuck at Handy Cross - and then find they didn't have your cheapo wine or your favourite fish fingers in stock.

So you still have to go out the next day to the supermarket to buy the missing stuff. And I also normally spend several minutes on the phone complaining to the various online stores about their sell-by dates.

But that's all another story for another time.

On Tuesday night, I had to find an alternative to writing this wonderful column on the computer. But my ancient typewriter is now broken, while I can no longer actually write longhand.

My son is in Year 1 at school and I swear that every kid in his class has more legible handwriting than me. My reliance on keyboards has turned my longhand into a scrawl.

The only choice was to compose it all in my head while I watched telly. But I'm too distracted these days for that.

I was told there was something called Mistresses on BBC, so I tuned in but it looked as exciting as watching paint drying.

Instead, I flicked it to teletext and began watching updates of Wycombe Wanderers' league game at home to lowly Dagenham & Redbridge.

And, I have to say, it was strangely relaxing. I lay there on the sofa with a beer in my hand watching the TV refresh itself every couple of minutes.

Wycombe were losing 1-0, and they stayed losing 1-0 every time the screen reloaded. It was far better than being at a game and having to sit in the cold. It was also quite exciting as the TV kept refreshing.

Finally, I had found something that was even more sedate than watching paint dry. Watching Wycombe fail to score on TV text surely has to be the most humbling experience known to mankind.

At last, the computer became free. I gave up TV text and began tapping in this column while I viewed the internet live text version of the game.

Sadly, Wycombe were no better at finding the net on the internet as their promotion hopes took a bashing and they lost.

Their failure to score or to salvage anything from the game was perhaps a fitting end to the most inane evening of my life. Normally, I would be upset by Wycombe losing, but I was strangely calm.

Perhaps it was caused by stupefacation. Perhaps I need treatment for it.

Mind you, I'm not alone in my bewilderment at modern technology. One reader emailed me after last week's piece to tell of her sympathy for my sat nav problems.

She too had owned an incredible sat nav location finder - but she'd then mislaid the device somewhere in her house and couldn't find it again.

Email, sat nav, internet, PCs, text, DVD recorders that don't record... I have crossed to a world of gadgetry where I remain a lost child.

Still, it could be worse. I haven't yet made the ultimate betrayal of all that is good and pure. Yes, at least I don't own a dishwasher.