Smoking

I can say this with no axe to grind, because I've never smoked a cigarette, a pipe, or anything else. The anti-smoking fascists are in action again, this time making moves for cigarettes to be sold only in plain cartons from under the counter. They won't be satisfied until smoking is banned anywhere in the open air and until all smokers are made to wear a yellow armband. Everyone knows smoking is not exactly a heath aid, but what business is it of everyone else?

Computer Says No

A very popular, but in my view highly overrated, TV programme of recent years was LITTLE BRITAIN. The sketches were too repetive, being repeated week after week with no real variation. Nevertheless, I have to acknowledge that the basic ideas behind many of the sketches were sharp and insightful. One of these was the 'computer says no' series, in which an unthinking employee of a travel agent pressed a few computer keys before coming up with the unhelpful response to a straightforward question of 'computer says no'.

This is a real phenomenon of our times. It is encountered in all sorts of situations. Certainly it isn't confined to travel agents, nor even just to computer systems. So determined have been the designers of systems and procedures been to make them 'idiot proof' that they discourage the use of any iniative on the part of the user. In other words, they encourage them to be idiots.