Your Android ‘virtual assistants’ always self-activating for no apparent reason
With every new arrival in the Quotasphere , such as these voice-activated A.I devices, something old has to go to make room for it. Here are some features of previous Quotscapes which have quietly left the scene without saying goodbye :- ( in no particular order ) sleeve garters on travelling sales reps’ shirts : hitch-hiking: famous East End gangsters with names like Smudger and Scarface: toddlers on reins ; Woolworths: generic ads in local cinemas for local Indian restaurants: analogue butchers’ scales with indicator needles : mohair : all-white kids storybooks: liveried /uniformed doormen in cinemas : pipe-smoking : men raising their hats to ladies : women smoothing their skirts when they sit down : Reliant Robins: seafood sellers in pubs: string-back driving gloves: nicknames like Nobby ,Pongo and Chalkie : roller towels : bubble-cars: half-timbered estate cars: whole-school photographs : hinged train doors : tennis racket presses : soap-on-a-rope : national anthem in cinemas: steering column gear-change levers : polaroid cameras : personalized car sun-shields with first names on : chain-guards on bikes with crossbar gear sticks: Goblin teasmaids : those anti-static dangly things on cars : blue salt-wrapper in crisp packets: town-centre horse-troughs : pianos in pubs : carbon paper : silence in libraries : pound-signs on menus : messenger boys : pension day queues outside post-offices : motorbike sidecars : flock wallpaper : anti-macassars : spoken middle bits in songs: headlight dipper floor-knobs: children calling elders ‘aunt’ or ‘uncle’ even when they actually ARE : Saturday morning cinema clubs : bus conductors : striped pajamas : stamp-licking :“ Mother’s Pride’ bread delivery vans : tableside carvery/ flambée/drinks /crèpe trolleys in restaurants : paper crowns on cutlet bones : cigarette cards : encyclopedia salesmen : hostess trolleys : Freeman Hardy and Willis and Timothy Whites: : circuses with performing animals: Happy Eaters : Green Shield stamps : Civil Defence nuclear drills: chips in newspaper : Penny for the Guy; sardine can keys; cravats: theatre curtains going up on a vicarage drawing room, staircase and hall with a French window with the sum streaming through : directory inquiries : fish-knives and -forks: thumping televisions or holding indoor aerial aloft to get a picture: licking thumbs to turn pages: breathing on one’s glasses before cleaning the lenses: rag-and-bone men: Saluting AA and RAC patrolmen on motorbikes and sidecar: famous chess-players: bus conductors: striped pajamas: headlight-dipping control knobs on the floor of the car: cage-lifts : louvred cupboard doors and avocado bathrooms: flock wallpaper: typewriters: door-to-door brush- and vacuum cleaner-salesmen and knife grinders , French onion sellers: pound signs on restaurant menus : blotting paper: B-movies : smoking in planes: banging on the bottom of glass tomato sauce bottles to make the stuff come out, animals made out of pipe-cleaners, public weighing machines, red-eye in photographs, Parliament Square Brexit shouters , etc etc…….
INTRODUCING ROBOVIC
Why go through the motions when the motions can be gone through for you? RoboVic can kneel , bless and wave his arms about with the best of them. With him doing all the boring stuff you could be out on your pastoral visits and having tea and lardy cake with old ladies and doing all the fun things which go with the priesthood. AND you could have Sundays off . Robo-Vic is an idea from Quot Technologies whose time has come – licensed to forgive sins and conduct weddings and funerals.
This life-sized but convincingly weedy clerical robot has been pre-programmed to word-perfection in all liturgy and holy writ with an exhaustive repertoire of psalms and hymns which come complete with heavenly choir and organ accompaniment. And you needn’t even go to church because Robotic doesn’t care if you’re there or not. Sorry, Vicar, but it’s better than the real thing but – at last – an answer to your prayers . (Warning . Restricted preaching : RoboVic cannot climb stairs to a pulpit.)
(Fleur Hayfield , Truro) - QQQ**
