The modern world is very annoying

If, like me, you’re currently fighting your 37th sniffle, cold, bug, or flu of the season, you might have noticed that alongside the prolific sneezing and watery eyes, this latest strain also diminishes our ability to endure the brazen stupidity of the world.

I realised this when I found myself having another blazing row with the Amazonian overlord who sits on a shelf in the kitchen. What I’d like to know is if the house is really getting smarter, why do I find myself in more stupid arguments with Alexa? 

“No, Alexa, I don’t want to enable a new routine that allows me to meditate like I’m stuck on a Tibetan peak…”

“No, I don’t care that Michelle Malone & the Hot Toddies have a new Christmas album out called ‘Toddie Time’…”

“AND WILL YOU PLEASE STOP TELLING ME ABOUT THE F**KING TRAFFIC IN WIGAN! I DON’T OWN A CAR AND NEVER GO TO WIGAN!”

I seem to be in a constant state of low-level hostility with the everyday world. Or is this what ageing feels like? A slow inevitable decline as you watch yourself being forced to pay £5 for a cup of coffee, £2 for a bottle of water, yet get a fully-tailored suit from Primark for less than a tenner?

This cold began over the weekend when I had the misfortune of watching the nail-biting stalemate between Petrochemical City and Hedge Pool (USA). That’s when I noticed that the Etihad (formerly known as City of Manchester Stadium) has an innovation this year. Leveraging the magical property of perspective, the advertising bods over there have realised that they can stagger the advertising hoardings in a way to double the height of the usual pitch-side ads. With cleverly synchronised graphics, the side of the pitch consisted of a huge advertising space with the usual crowd of ordinary punters (remember them?) pushed further into the fringes, if you could see them at all.

It’s a “brilliant” bit of thinking which leads to the inevitable question: how far can the power of perspective be exploited? Why stop at two banks of hoardings? Why not add a third or a fourth so that the entire top half of the screen during a football match could be a single advert for Japan’s favourite noodle? And why limit this to football? Why not have it at the rugby, the golf, the ballet… Prime Minister’s Question Time brought to you by Pop Pan Crackers, Hong Kong’s favourite cracker?

Why, indeed, even bother with the football at all, which is a reasonable question given VAR, points deductions, corruption, money laundering, sex crimes, human rights abuses, and Alan Shearer… Let’s instead sit down to a Saturday 3pm kickoff for an advertising marathon: two 45-minute sessions dedicated to products not available in the British market, divided by a 15-minute break for some chummy bants between Crouchy and Keano and then some more ads before we can all switch over to ITV and enjoy Nigel Farage’s wrinkled butt brought to us by Tombola and All Bran. And when that’s done, we can flip back to BBC to watch the highlights from the day’s ads in Match of the Day, brought to you by the nation’s favourite crisp-muncher and political prisoner.

Without putting too fine a point on it… When did we allow things to become so bloody awful? And what can we do about it? People take to the streets to protest all the big things. Why can’t we just take one day to protest all the small things?

Can’t we start a march against “Everything That’s Naff”? What say you, Greta? Surely you also hate coffee shops ripping us off for another 45p just because we have a dairy intolerance and/or prefer oat milk?

I’ll start. We’ve got advertising coming out of the wazoo (brought to you by Kazoo!) and you can’t even see out of the bus without having the push your eye between a gap between Hugh Grant’s teeth. Human beings are being squeezed out and that’s before AI achieves sentience. I’m all for the convenience of the cashless society but must it be free of humans as well? I imagine the day when my credit card will have legs and can go out on its own. Or maybe it will be my mobile phone. 

“Say hello to the iPhone 27. It lives your life so you don’t have to…”

Self-service has just come to my local Post Office, which isn’t a Post Office but a branch of WHSmiths, a shop that seems to have been close to bankruptcy since the 1880s and serves no purpose other than to overprice jiffy bags and biros. The “self-service” is manned by a humourless twentysomething who helpfully does whatever you need to do because the system is too complicated for most of us to use. So, it’s quicker for him to do it for you… You know… Like he used to do sitting behind the counter? Only now he gets to the same job… but standing up.

What is the point?

The whole experience of visiting a Post Office resembles a 1960s movie based in East Germany starring James Mason. Simply sending a parcel is akin to smuggling a family across the Berlin War. It’s no longer enough to know the weight. They want to know the contents. 

“Oh, just books…” you say in your best James Mason voice.

“Yes, but what books? What kind? Are they valuable? Are they flammable? Are they ethically sourced? Made from recycled paper? Do they contain any subversive commentary about the government? Michael Gove will want to know…”

It often feels like they begrudge my presence. The Post Office, I mean. Not the government. But I also mean the government too. 

The assistant tried to push my parcel through the letterbox template they use and when it didn’t go through, he charged me an extra £2 for a “small parcel”. 

“I’m sure they’ve made that slot smaller,” I joked, to which he replied…

“The dimensions have been the same since I’ve been here, nearly eight years…”

Now, I’m not saying that the extinction of our species and the inevitable heat death of the universe will be filled with more joy than twentysomethings employed by the Post Office, but I am saying we should consider that possibility…

More choice, more freedom, yet the options are constantly narrowing. 

Not to become one of those people who start a sentence with “I remember the day when…” but I remember the day when things were supposedly more complicated and yet felt so much easier.

I went to buy some cough medicine this week.

“Do you have anything to help a cough?” I asked.

“What kind of cough is it?” asked the assistant. “A dry cough? A tickly cough? Is it a mucus cough or a chesty cough? Any postnasal drip? Is your throat sore? Is it bronchial? Will you require a decongestant? Liquid or pastille? Max strength or regular? Gluten or sugar-free? Vegan friendly? Herbal? Or would you prefer something you just shove up your nose and press ‘fire’?”

I’m sure I had a point when I began writing this article and that was to say I’ve got another cold and I’m feeling too ill to have strong feelings about anything other than convey my sympathy to you if you’re also suffering.

You’re not alone. There’s a lot of it about and we all need to be fit enough to catch something else over Christmas.

Get well soon.