Google it! And why nobody knows jack shit any more.

Whatsisname...

What is the name of the actor who always appears in the Coen brothers movies? Y’know… short guy… kinda resembles an actual caricature drawing of himself? Also, what was the name of that odd song the late Richard Harris sung, something about a cake being left out in the rain? Jeez , I can’t remember. If only I could find out the answer in the next 5 seconds or so…

Over the past year I have noticed a recurring phrase slip into the lexicon used by both friends and family, to the point where it is growing increasingly more frequent the more time I spend with them. Second to the champion phrase that is “Who would like another drink?”, “Google It!” keeps on popping into conversations where trivial details concerning the subject matter is either forgotten, not known, or temporarily obscured by the dark cloud of alcohol that consumes the brain on nights out. In my circle of friends, forgotten song titles are often cause for shouting “Google It!”, as are the names of forgotten actors, musical notation symbols, authors, countries of origin, years – the list has no end. With the proliferation of wireless portable devices such as Apple iPhones, iPads and Blackberrys though, it is possible to drive the dark clouds far away at the stroke of an LCD screen (or ‘push of a button’ for you luds out there). Gadgets like these come to the rescue when the gaps in our knowledge threaten to blight us on occasions such as this.

If she turns her fists towards
her face to look at her tattoos
it will read "leitGoog".

When the phrase is spoken, it is usually implied that the Googling would be done at a later date, so quite often the evening would end without anyone actually finding an answer. The chances of post-pub chat-recollection (P.P.C.R.) are severely diminished after six pints of London Pride, so we end up learning nothing whatsoever.

What is becomingly frighteningly clear is how much people now rely on instant answers from the internet, rather than our own brains. Where the calculator helped kill the skill of arithmetic in today’s generation, Google will slay the art of memory recall in the next. The aptitude of working out a sum or equation has given way to the quick, almost masturbatory self-gratification of bashing a few buttons until the answer is ejaculated on the LCD display. The human race didn’t evolve by wanking, and I am convinced that there is a major point made there which I will leave you to decipher.

To make matters worse, we don’t even plump for educated guesses any more. Let’s say that the exact year in which The Beatles released their seminal LP, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has escaped you. As you don’t know the answer you try to work it out, sprinkle a bit of logic or attempt to recall some fragment of information that your memory may have deposited many years ago, ready to be smashed in emergencies such as now. At least you are making a decent stab at the answer, just like working out a mathematical problem. This no longer happens because the gadget-guru amongst your group has already shone the answer in front of your face on his illuminated iPhone. “It’s 1967 mate, look… Googled it…”. “Oh, cheers.”

I am complicit in all of this, though, as I reach for the internet sometimes a bit too soon to get the answers I crave. As an aside, never attempt to get the answers to any health problems you may be experiencing via Google. If you do, you will most certainly self-diagnose cancer so please visit a doctor for a proper consultation. I often wonder how long before the NHS and the hot potato outfit that is Skype combine and deliver an online health service? Online consultancies where a GP can zoom into your testicles via a 3D webcam? I can imagine this happening in the next 10 or 15 years or so and, besides, it has been tried and tested. Leslie Grantham has been successfully using the service for years or so. But I digress.

The Internet

So, what becomes of all of this? Is the luxury of having a phone-a-friend lifeline on hand at all times the by-product of a generation that is constantly under attack from instant social media such as text messages, images, tweets, mobiles and holds the entire internet in the palm of its hand? Is the need to retain information becoming less important to people nowadays, as they know they can get the answer to anything at any time anyway? We don’t even need to remember passwords anymore as your computers browser intelligently remembers it for you. Knowing phone numbers off by heart now only stretches to the ten measly digits of your own mobile number, and even then the first two digits are universal. Tragically, some people don’t even know their own mobile number. In the days before mobiles I could recall the numbers of close friends, family and various fast-food joints for leisure. Now I wipe sweat from my brow with relief every time I successfully enter my four-digit credit card PIN number.

Whether we will see an eventual decline in the mental ability of the young and general knowledge eradicated, it is hard to say. When new technology comes along it is easy to blame it for the supposed ills of today’s society, but in this case there may to a case to answer. As I was writing the title for this piece I wondered where the term ‘jack shit’ came from. I think I will save you the trouble… I've Googled It!

To ‘check box’ or ‘not to check box’, that is the question…

As a fan of frugality and free stuff, I often spend my spare moments online entering competitions and free draws to win holidays or gizmos & gadgets. First I type in my name, email address and mobile number and then it is time to answer the question which will determine if I stand a chance at winning. Usually the question is a patronising simple one such as "Who lives at 10 Downing Street?" or “Which is the correct spelling for diarrhea? Is it a) diarrhea b) chrisrea or c) platypus“. Once the correct answer is checked you would have thought that it was plain sailing from there. Wrong! What follows next is the most indecipherable, mind-boggling and potentially booby-trapped test of all…


“Please do not uncheck this box if you wouldn’t like us not to pass your contact details to a third party or not."

I can confidently say that every single one of you would have come a cropper with this intentionally perplexing riddle at some stage of your internet life and tentatively uncheck the box assuming your inbox will be safe from emails offering dating services and free online bets. To make it even more perilous you often find two of these Mensa challenges clumped together, the second one deviating from the first ever so slightly:

“Please do not check this box if you would like us not to contact you with offers or promotions via email.“

You are now faced with the uncomfortable dilemma of submitting your entry with one of the two boxes unchecked, the unsymmetrical submission bringing out the OCD in you. Doubt will be gnawing away at you as you consider your entry…you click SUBMIT.

Nervously you refresh your inbox, expecting a flurry of penis-enhancing pills and promotional codes for low market restaurants to be emailed to you, confirming your dumb failure to crack the test.
After waiting and waiting an email pops into your inbox… You breathe a sigh of relief as you glance at it. Fortunately, it is not of the spam variety. Unfortunately, your sigh quickly turns into one of crushing disappointment. You have won blue suede shoes for life! Oh well, something ventured…