A fan's notes

When was the last time a piece of technology made you happy? Truly happy, so satisfied with the experience that you immediately wanted to repeat it? For me it was last weekend, in a pub toilet, using an Excel Xlerator hand dryer. This unbelievably powerful bit of equipment sorted out my mitts in less time than it takes to say ‘force 12 hurricane’. I was tempted to re-wash them, simply for the fun of using it again. And I realised this is the only sort of device that gives real pleasure these days: one that does a basic job very, very well. All the kit that’s supposed to amaze us — computers, iPads, smartphones — just leaves us frustrated.

My pub visit came at the end of a day in which my smartphone had made me take eight photos of my young son for every one I wanted to save, on account of the huge gap between you pressing the button and the shot actually being captured. (Three-year-old boys rarely hold a pose.) Ten years ago, if you’d been promised a mobile phone that was also a high-resolution camera and let you view the internet on the move, you’d have salivated at the thought. And then it was invented, and you got one, and the first couple of times you took a photo and posted it on Facebook the excitement did indeed make you drool. But the third time, Facebook was down, or the photo didn’t save properly, or some other gremlin stopped you reaching the brave new cyberworld you’d come to depend on.