A gadget too far

MY struggles with a new mobile phone struck a chord with many readers, and with women in particular.

Now there’s a new challenger in the Riddle household for the title of Most Irritating Gadget. It’s called a YouView box.

 “Search our galaxy of content using your remote control” says the blurb.

Which remote control would that be, then, out of the three now lined up on my coffee table, all of them apparently indispensable?

I don’t want all this technology, let alone an entire universe of programmes to eat up all my spare time.

I don’t care much if I can’t record three programmes at once and rewatch an entire series six weeks after it was broadcast.

It’s television, for goodness’ sake. Moving wallpaper.  Apart from half a dozen favourite shows, it’s what we do when we haven’t got anything better to occupy our minds.

The more of these gizmos we acquire, the less I understand, and now I find that if my husband’s not home to juggle between the screen menus I rarely bother to watch at all.

I’m sure younger people feel differently, and that’s fine. But I just feel disenfranchised.

NOBODY could ever mistake me for a member of the Wiltshire Supporters’ Club.

Other than in the financial sense, that is, since I have no choice but to pay my council tax.

However, hooray!  For once its leaders have done something right, so it’s only fair to point it out.

They’ve foregone the loot they hoped to rake in through flogging off their old depot in Coombe Bissett to developers of ‘executive’ homes.

And they’ve listened to parish councillors’ pleas for much-needed affordable housing to rent to local people.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this long-running campaign, and to Wiltshire’s cabinet for showing that ‘localism’ need not be just an empty buzzword.