About 5 or 6 years ago we were visiting an émigré from the village who had gone to live in Sleaford , Lincolnshire. I was driving and Ann was navigating with her usual reluctance. After half an hour of driving without seeing anything that looked at all reassuring to me I stopped the car and asked Ann if she was sure that she knew where we were. She showed me the map and pointed out the thin, meandering road upon which we were set and assured me that soon we would arrive at Pinkies. When I pointed out to her that the road was meandering because it was in fact a river and this might have been guessed to be the case even by the inexperienced map reader because it was coloured blue she did not seem at all ready to accept the necessary sarcasm but rather threw the map at me and refused to go on.
Last Thursday I bought from Aldi a satellite navigation system for £119.99 and it works beautifully. It has a female voice. Apart from calculating the route accurately, should I make the occasional error she does not say “You should have turned where I said – I dont know where we are – youll have to go back. This is the last time…..etc etc”. Instead of all that stuff the mechanical woman quietly recalculates the route and tells me the way in a voice that bears no recriminations and does not humiliate by forcing me back to face the precise point of my error
2 comments:
I won't have one of those damn things - the satnav I mean. They rob you of the fun of driving along with one eye on the road, one eye on the map and both hands fending off your irate spouse. Those reassuring tones will lull you into a false sense of security - and suppose your sat nat is colourblind and does indeed direct you into a river - then where would you be? Stick to dead reckoning. It has never let me down.
I was determined to get one after travelling alone to an address in Birmingham. All the petrol stations were manned by cheap foreigners who knew absolutely nothing about anything.
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