I was wondering how to pass the time during a 14-hour drive to the south of France recently. As it turned out, a phone call to my father’s GP surgery covered a good chunk of it. The passage of French towns became punctuated with updated positions in the telephone queue. By Troyes I was caller number 32, and by Dijon I had made it into the top ten.
My 90-year-old dad is mystified by this new world he finds himself in. “We’re lost” he said, and he wasn’t talking about my driving. He struggles to recognise the world he now inhabits. A world of increasing automation and de-personalised interaction.
