We love ringing the changes when we take the dog out for her daily walks, alternating between the four local parks that are within a ten minute drive of our South London home.
Of these, my firm favorite is Dulwich Park, designed in part by Charles Barry Jr. (son of the chap who built the Palace of Westminster) before it was opened in 1890 by the future Liberal Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery.
However, since the local labor council introduced a charge for using the car park, my poor wife has had to cross Dulwich Park off her destination list when it’s her turn to walk the dog alone.
This isn’t, I assure you, because I begrudge her the £2 an hour to park there, which is cheap by London standards – although of course it’s annoying to have to pay for something that was free for the first 35 years in the environment.
No, she stays away, because the only payment method accepted by the municipality is the PayByPhone parking app. And to say the least, Ms. U and technology just don’t get along.
TOM UTLEY: My wife avoids using the PayByPhone parking app. To say the least, Ms. U and tech just don’t get along (stock image)
You will understand what I mean when I tell you that it took me many agonizing weeks to even teach her how to operate the dog door we installed in the door from the kitchen to the garden when we brought our Jack Russell/Dachshund- crossing from Battersea adopted Dogs and Cats Home – and there’s no electronics involved at all.
abhors
Over and over I explained to her, with less and less patience, that when the little tabs on either side of the flap were facing up, it was unlocked, so the dog could get in or out as he saw fit. When they pointed to each other, it was locked. The other two settings, I told her – let Minnie in but not out, or out but not in – should just be ignored.
But time and time again she misplaced the tabs, allowing Minnie to pop out but not back in, or in but not out to answer a call from nature. One of us always had to get up at night when we heard the dog yapping in the garden to be let back in. Either that, or puddles kept appearing on the kitchen floor.
Ah, well, Ms. You finally got the hang of it. But as for any electronic device, I fear she is completely at her wit’s end, without any hope of instruction. She won’t even try any of the great tricks our car can pull off, like self-parking, cruise control, speed limiter, or the ability to switch the performance setting from comfort to economy or sport.
Needless to say, she flatly refuses to download the miraculous Mercedes app, which not only allows users to check tire pressure and fluid levels at the touch of a button, but also lock or unlock the car from anywhere in the world.
She especially dislikes the app’s ability to show me where the car is at a glance, so I can track its movements no matter who’s behind the wheel. I think she’s afraid that if she wants to visit a secret lover, she’ll have to take the bus so as not to let me know where he lives!
Also, she won’t download our bank’s app, although it’s very useful for fraud protection because it tells me right away when a payment leaves our joint account. She senses I’m stalking her electronically, though I promise I won’t.
Mind you, I’m not one to scoff at her problems with electronic devices. Indeed, if there were a contest for the title of the world’s most incompetent user of modern technology, I’d be a shoo-in for the silver medal, second only to the unbeatable champion, Ms. U.
As hopeless as I am, even I have mastered the PayByPhone app.
But like so many others who have used it, I often find myself loitering in the parking lot waiting for a signal or validation from my bank, which is mysteriously demanded in some locations but not others.
Indeed, I’m getting painfully used to the ‘Payment Denied’ message, meaning I either have to start all over again or instead leave for Belair Park down the road, where parking will remain free (but for how long?).
However, since the local labor council introduced a charge for using the car park, my poor wife has had to cross Dulwich Park (pictured) off her list of destinations when it’s her turn to walk the dog alone.
Curse
I can’t help feeling that if the signal is so unreliable in Dulwich, in the shadow of Crystal Palace’s cell towers, how people must be suffering in remote areas, far from transmitters, where the council has switched from coin-operated. the-slot meters to apps.
However, from a purely selfish point of view, I have to say that the introduction of Pay ByPhone charges in Dulwich Park has not been an outright curse. The most striking effect is that it keeps people away, not only from the parking lot but also from the park itself.
There are even mornings when Minnie and I feel almost alone on those 70 acres. This is a rare and pleasant sensation for a Londoner, I can tell you. But I can’t believe clearing the park for us was part of those Southwark councilors’ intent when they signed up for the app.
Much more likely, the aim was primarily to generate revenue in the cheapest way possible, with the added bonus of joining the Mayor of London’s all-out war against the private car.
As I noted earlier, Sadiq Khan seems to have made it his life’s mission to suck the commercial heartland out of the capital by making it a no-go area for the trucks, vans and cars on which businesses depend.
But as far as my favorite park goes, it’s those who are uncomfortable with modern technology that suffer the most.
And inevitably these are also many elderly and infirm, born before the Internet era, who depend on their cars to go to the shops or to get out in the fresh air.
The more I think about it, the more I begin to wonder if those like my wife who can’t or won’t master electronic apps might be much wiser than those of us who use them every day.
After all, this week of the 50th anniversary of the first cell phone call, we’ve read about the Genesis international cybercrime gang, whose members sold our internet identities, logins and passwords for just 56 pence each.
With the terrifying advances in artificial intelligence, it’s clear that most of us are just barely beginning to realize the dangers we face (file image)
Emergency
Granted, it’s finally closed, thanks to the combined efforts of 17 national police agencies, including ours. But God knows how many similar operations are still thriving, leaving us increasingly vulnerable to fraudsters who can access every detail of our lives, from our Amazon passwords to the pressure in our tires.
Add in the terrifying advances in artificial intelligence — so terrifying, in fact, that Elon Musk and more than 1,800 others in the tech world have signed a letter demanding a six-month pause in further research and development — and it’s clear that most of us hardly began to appreciate the dangers we face.
I must confess that at first I thought Musk and Co had read too many sci-fi fantasies if they really believed that AI machines would take over the world. Can’t we just unplug or take out the batteries, I thought, if they start to get bolshy?
That was before I read yesterday’s Mail article detailing how fraudsters are already using AI to clone the voices of sons and daughters to demand emergency funds from their parents. Faces can also be cloned so that computer images can be created to look and sound like real people we know and trust.
If AI can do all of this today – and it’s teaching itself to become smarter and smarter – isn’t it easy to see how it could one day undermine the entire capitalist system by destroying trust in commercial transactions over the internet?
In the past, I have often mocked Mrs. U’s maddening refusal to embrace the online world. I’m beginning to fear that, not for the first time, she might be right.