Blind faith...

There's nothing worse than blind faith in anything, particularly 'ideology' but on a day-to-day level, technology, note how both words end with 'logy', never a good sign. I encounter the latter on a daily basis, normally when I've jumped off a train and found myself in a crowd of people edging ever closer to the automated ticket barriers. In the good old days there were ticket collectors, far better, and often I would encounter some real characters like the bloke on the barriers at Victoria station back in the late seventies, or possibly even the early eighties, I can't recall exactly. I was on my home after a hard day in the office and I asked him something like, "Is that the Carshalton train, platform 11?" His response was actually very funny, mainly because it was so unexpected. "I don't fucking know!" The humour was in the fact that he should have known, that was his job, to be helpful to 'customers', we were no longer passengers but customers, but that never rang true as there was no choice, we had to be on the train and British Rail was the only provider of the service. I used that phrase a lot, still do, but always in jest, and most people get it.

I have, of course, digressed. I was talking about blind faith and while I suppose you could say that I was putting all my faith in getting a proper answer from the man at the barrier and that, in a sense, I had blind faith in his ability to provide me with an answer, the real reason behind my sudden interest in 'blind faith' is that, last week, I was moving forward very slowly towards the barriers at Redhill station in Surrey and when I was just one person away from placing my ticket into the automated machine that would ultimately free me from the station, the man in front produced his smart phone and placed it on the clear glass protecting (I'm guessing) the scanner underneath it, but guess what? It wasn't working and the man in question was now holding everybody up with his blind faith in technology. In the end he had to give up and approach the one person supervising the situation who handed the man what looked like a normal ticket for him to place in the machine's aperture and gain his freedom. I just find people with blind faith in technology really irritating when it's plainly obvious that the analogue way of doing things works best. I hate going to restaurants where they have blind faith in technology for a reason: to save money on waiting staff. I was in Wagamama the other day just outside of Battersea Park Power Station (now a shopping mall) and the man who would ultimately lose his job to high tech was pointing out how I could order my meal and pay for it online by simply scanning the QR code on the table. I already knew that I wouldn't be doing that, but humoured him nonetheless with a smile and then ordered in the human way when prompted.

I remember once leaving the house unknowingly without my debit card and not realising until I needed it. I know how this situation arose: normally, if I break with routine, something will go wrong; in this case I'd either changed wallets or stopped putting my debit and credit cards in the wallet that carries my smart phone. Result? I've left the card in the house on the console table in the hall. For a short while my day was ruined. In fact, I thought at the time, I might as well have stayed in bed all day, but then I remembered that I had my debit card on my iphone, which ultimately saved the day. For a short while after that incident I too started using my phone to buy things until, very quickly, the novelty wore off and went back to using the real debit card, once I'd accustomed myself to having a wallet AND the wallet that now only contained my smart phone. The moral of the story? Never break with routine.

What's been happening, you may well ask, and I would have to say 'not much'. I've tried to keep up the cycling and I've started riding over to Sutton on a Sunday morning to see mum. On Saturdays I try to ride to Oxted. I've also been walking a fair bit. Last week I managed two walks home from Purley to where I live (around two miles) and the week prior (and possibly the week before that also) I was putting in seven miles a day if I walked to and from the station AND had a walk at lunch time. The extreme heat has put an end to the lunch time walks but the walk home from the station, largely in the shade, has been good as has the morning walk to the station in the relatively cool morning air. But let's make no mistake, it's been hot, very hot, 35 degrees hot and the nights have been long and uncomfortable. It's cooled a little bit. As I write this, it's almost 0600hrs on a Friday and the reason I'm here at such an ungodly hour is simple: I woke up around 0330hrs or 0400hrs, I can't remember exactly when, and found that as the light seeped into the room I was wide awake, so I jumped out of bed, made myself a cup of tea and some marmalade on toast and here I am in the living room, nobody else about.

The whole blind faith thing has been on my mind for a few days now, ever since I found myself in the queue at the barriers and was temporarily held up by the man who had put all his faith in his iphone. Actually, I remember another incident where blind faith in technology let me down. I was at a European airport, I think it was Helsinki, but it might have been anywhere in the world and it could have been further way, I can't remember. For some reason I had my boarding pass on my smart phone. Normally I have a paper boarding pass. I was at the gate with my smart phone ready to show the woman at the gate and guess what? My phone ran out of power. Typical, I thought, as she hastily produced a paper version for me.

My dad, God rest his soul, had blind faith in the government and this was probably because he spent his life in the civil service and at one point worked inside No.10. I never once heard him question the motives of the politicians he worked for or in any way show distrust of them and if he was alive today I'm sure that would still be the case.

I don't believe in blind faith in anything, least of all the government. There are, in fact, very few people you can really trust in this world and if you think otherwise then you're a fool.