Good morning, welcome to Friday, another working week done and dusted and with the Interlull it means there’s no working weekend … for me at least.
I don’t know about the weather where you are, but here in Dublin it’s been unseasonably mild. Normally November gets pretty cold but we’ve had 16-18C at times. Figured this morning I’d check my weather widget as it felt a bit cold getting out of bed and saw this:
It looks like global warming is going on holiday and wants to get one final blast in before winter arrives. 28C? Don’t get me wrong, I’d be quite happy with that, but I suspect it’s a technological error rather than a weather one. And there’s part of me that thinks if it is actually a weather one, we’re all doomed much sooner than we think.
If I had a choice I think I’d like my mass extinction event to be a catastrophic and rapid one, rather than a slow, inexorable descent into a world that becomes uninhabitable except for the strange creatures who would adapt and evolve to cope with the changing climate. Like, I bet John Terry and Phil Collins would survive, becoming able to lay dozens of eggs every day for their tiny, irritating offspring which hatch like baby frogs.
Me, I’d rather we got hit by an asteroid from space, or one of those volcanoes that’s capable of blasting half the earth’s core to the surface goes off, blocks out all the light, and those unfortunate few that survive live in a permanent kind of winter where cannibalism and underground dwelling are the norm. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any massive volcanoes in Ireland so we might be one of the people who perish slowly.
And even then you can be sure the most vigorous complaints would be from people who don’t have any coverage for their mobile phone and can’t do a Facebook update or Tweet about the catastrophe.
“Feck this giant cloud anyway, Anto. Have ye any coverage yerself?”
“The only coverage I’ve got is all this bleedin’ ash all over me, wha?!”
“I expect better for €20 a month, they said ‘All you can eat data’, wankers”.
Technology is worrisome though. The other day I went to Cork, which is not in itself worrisome. When I got back I thought I’d check my location history on my phone. I know many of you turn this off and I understand why. I have it on as an experiment because I noticed something really odd a few weeks ago. If you look at the map of places I have been this year, see if you can spot the odd thing:
Yes, I have been to the UK, to Scotland, to Spain, to Cork (recently added), but I have not been to Azerbaijan. With all due respect to it, it’s not high on my list of places I want to go. There are other countries and cities that I would like to visit before I go there. Ok, I’ll be perfectly honest, I never want to go there. I don’t doubt its natural beauty or the warm welcome of the people, but it’s just not for me.
I like lights and skyscrapers and stuff and things and I have earmarked a number of cities in which I would like to spend some time. But why does my phone think I was in Azerbaijan? Is this evidence of a crossover between this and a parallel dimension in which I am much more of an explorer and happy to visit places the real me wouldn’t? I think yes, yes it is.
In much the same way I believe there’s a dimension where Jack Wilshere has never been injured in his life; where Mikel Arteta is a very very bald man but also very very fast; and where dolphins are actually guardians of the sea and not plotting against us even as we speak (I suspect they have teams of Clobber Dolphins who whack into underground fissures to expedite the lava and the eruption that will make mankind extinct).
What is going on?! Have you noticed anything strange in your location history? Check it out today – you never know where the other yous have been. And I’m sure everyone has their little glitch in the matrix stories. Like looking for your keys and them not being where you think they are and then you search the house and you go back and find them where you thought they were in the first place. And monsters and that.
Sorry for the rambling, but hey. It’s one of those international breaks. Chile played Colombia last night and drew 1-1. I haven’t seen a lot of reaction but as far as I can make out Alexis played the full game and played like a man who has played too many full games recently. Which is hardly a surprise. Maybe we should just footballers take whatever PEDs they want.
In much the same way the Tour de France would be more interesting if they were given free reign to take anything they liked, perhaps this is the only way to combat the rigorous schedule. I mean, they’re not going to play less football because football = TV and ads and sponsorships and endorsements and tickets which = £££$$$€€€, so let’s create super-humans in labs who can play all day, every day and never get tired.
Sure, they’ll have an advantage when the asteroid hits or the volcano does its thing, but until then we can all enjoy sport TO THE MAXIMUM and mobile technology allows us to WAX LYRICAL even as it lets slip the fabricated nature of the universe itself.
Fun fun. No Arsecast today because of Interlull. You might find a podcast you like here though. Till tomorrow.
