Not so fast

I’m losing my patience. Not so long ago I’d happily wait ten minutes for a bus, or even whole days for the next instalment of my favourite television programme. It didn’t seem to bother me in the slightest that my holiday photos would not be seen until I’d picked them up from the chemist. I even went to the library to get information from an encyclopaedia.

Life, in short, used to be a waiting game, and patience was not just a virtue but a habit. Now I wonder how I survived in a world without Google Maps, Uber or smartphones with in-built cameras.

The whole direction and purpose of modern life, at least on the surface and for those well-off enough to benefit, is to make everything frictionless, personalised, easy. Click a button, a taxi turns up to your house. Click another, it’s a handyman or a pizza, or a book or a date.