This morning I had an argument, just a mild one, a good-humoured one, with a bus driver. Our buses are not very frequent: one every half hour during the day and one every hour in the evening. They are often late. Occasionally, like this morning's case, they are early. They run at 27 and 57 minutes past the hour during the day. So as I approached the bus stop at the crossroads at ten minutes to the hour, I was expecting to see a bus going up into the village to turn round, not one already on its way out of the village. It was already past the bus stop but I was waving my arms around like a thing demented, signalling to the driver that I wanted to get on. Had I missed it, I would not have arrived in Manchester in time to meet a friend. Some drivers are sticklers for protocol and will not stop and open their doors unless actually at a stop but fortunately this was not one of those. Just a driver with no sense of time. "Are you early?" I asked with my best smile, "I'm sure you're supposed to be here at three minutes to and it's only ten to," "Three minutes to? Here?" he protested, "I don't think so." But I checked the timetable and I was right! These things happen.
But at least the driver was not controlled by electronic media and gadgets. He was still a human being. I am reading so much about gadgets that monitor our lives that I fear I am becoming a little obsessed by it. I keep reading a lot about the Apple watch and all the things it can do, monitoring your activity to within an inch of your life. It will let you know when and what to eat, provided you have the right APP! It will check that you have exercised sufficiently today. And it will no doubt remind you to do all sorts of things. But mostly it will let you track what you are doing and record your life, if you let it.
We could end up like those tourists who never actually see the place they visit because they are so busy monitoring and recording. If you walk round Venice, for example, with your video camera fixed to your eye, do you see the sights? And when do you actually get to watch the videos. It's a strange place, the modern world! But some places are fighting back. The Louvre has banned the use of the selfie stick in the museum, as has, I believe, the National Gallery in London.
After my little contretemps with the bus driver this morning, my travel went super-efficiently. With only a two minute wait for a tram, I was in Manchester within 45 minutes of leaving home. Possibly this was a consequence of the early bus.
When I returned home from a catch-up lunch with friend I have. It seen since before Christmas, post, or rather, spam was waiting for me, in the shape of a leaflet urging me to "let Jesus in". This was from an organisation calling itself "itsJesus.com". The pedant in me wonders why these people can't punctuate! Surely that should be "it's"? Of course, it may be that web addresses don't accept apostrophes but it offends my inner picky person.
Similarly, I am upset by sloppy, over-corrected English on other fliers that have come through the door. They are doing some major road resurfacing and were tell us about road closures, appealing to people to please move their cars promptly and so on. Among other bits of advice was this: "... I would advise all residents to check the soles of their shoes for Bitumen and loose chippings before entering one's house". "One's house"? Not "their house"? Oh dear!
These are the problems I have to deal with!
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If you are going to get upset about apostrophes, or lack thereof, I recall the mnemonic "a preposition is something you should never end a sentence with". Your parting remark should read “These are the problems with which I have to deal!”.
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