I was out walking in the early afternoon sunshine just like the song said (see Noel Coward, Leon Russell or Joe Cocker). It was a sultry afternoon, about 40 degrees. The streets were empty. It was just too hot.
I was heading west on a wide, quiet street on the better side of the railway line, where the 1950s yellow brick houses sit behind neat gardens and lawns and stretch out in rows over the hill, undisturbed by the box apartments that are turning the suburb into a grey and black monotone closer to the railway station.
As I came to a crossroad, a ute came around and pulled up and the driver leaned out and yelled something to me. He was red-faced and lost. Old but not elderly, some kind of a tradesman, and looking like he was looking for something. Pardon? I said. He named a street. I pointed. I know most of the streets around here. I stepped onto the road, went up to the car window. Have you got a Melways? I said.
He had better than that. He had a phone. I pointed again, but this time at the phone. He already had the suburb on screen. Look. It's there, I said. I know, he said. But how do you get there? He looked away from the phone and at the street.
OK. Let's stop right there. He knew where he was, and where he was going, because the phone told him. But he didn't know how to get there. There was already a blue line on the map. All he had to do was follow it. But his head was back in real geography, not its virtual replica.
This is a new spin on an old problem. In the days before digital, people would sometimes ask me how to get to a place, for example, my house, and I would direct them to the street directory page and cross reference. Yes, they would sometimes say. I know where it is. But how do you get there? You will have to read the map and work out a route, I would suggest if they were reasonably intelligent. If they were not, I would get a brightly coloured marker and deface the directory. Follow that, I would add.
With digital, no-one would have to read a complex map any more, I figured, because you can enlarge it.
I had to tell the man in the ute which road to take, and which after that.
It was like that old Irish joke where the visitor asks directions from a local: Well take you first left, right? Then take the second right and bear to your left. It's right in front of you on the left.
He roared off with a wave. I continued on my walk.
I was heading west on a wide, quiet street on the better side of the railway line, where the 1950s yellow brick houses sit behind neat gardens and lawns and stretch out in rows over the hill, undisturbed by the box apartments that are turning the suburb into a grey and black monotone closer to the railway station.
As I came to a crossroad, a ute came around and pulled up and the driver leaned out and yelled something to me. He was red-faced and lost. Old but not elderly, some kind of a tradesman, and looking like he was looking for something. Pardon? I said. He named a street. I pointed. I know most of the streets around here. I stepped onto the road, went up to the car window. Have you got a Melways? I said.
He had better than that. He had a phone. I pointed again, but this time at the phone. He already had the suburb on screen. Look. It's there, I said. I know, he said. But how do you get there? He looked away from the phone and at the street.
OK. Let's stop right there. He knew where he was, and where he was going, because the phone told him. But he didn't know how to get there. There was already a blue line on the map. All he had to do was follow it. But his head was back in real geography, not its virtual replica.
This is a new spin on an old problem. In the days before digital, people would sometimes ask me how to get to a place, for example, my house, and I would direct them to the street directory page and cross reference. Yes, they would sometimes say. I know where it is. But how do you get there? You will have to read the map and work out a route, I would suggest if they were reasonably intelligent. If they were not, I would get a brightly coloured marker and deface the directory. Follow that, I would add.
With digital, no-one would have to read a complex map any more, I figured, because you can enlarge it.
I had to tell the man in the ute which road to take, and which after that.
It was like that old Irish joke where the visitor asks directions from a local: Well take you first left, right? Then take the second right and bear to your left. It's right in front of you on the left.
He roared off with a wave. I continued on my walk.
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