Luddite

Fuck text messages. And fuck mobile phones too. Is there anything humanity has ever produced that is less poetic than the mobile phone? And e-mail and computers as well. Give me a clunky, beige, rotary-dial telephone with a spiral cord that tangles. Give me letters and stamps. Give me an LP. Give me red cast-iron telephone booths and pillar boxes. Give me books and expensive airplane tickets and card catalogues in libraries. Give me libraries and not the internet! Give me trains and Vespas and plain, unscented, un-be-mangoed shampoo. Give me single-blade razors. Give me trousers that fit and fuck baseball caps too. Fuck Lycra while we're at it. Give me tweed and denim and cotton. Give me furniture that I don't have to put together. Give me unions and healthcare and public education. Give me the Cold War and rap with lyrics about The Man and not the Lexus. Give me Grandmaster Flash and the Clash and a Socialist Worker in two colours. Give me four channels and Doctor Who. Give me typewriters and square tea-bags.

I am so tired. I am so, so tired.

I am a technology journalist and I turn twenty-nine in two weeks.