Electric Killer Sheep.

The next LLC theme is Myspace, and I'm compere- which I wasn't happy about. I gave up on myspace as too fiddly, so I'm no expert, but it did get me thinking about whether it's really an improvement. It's getting people writing again, which is nice. It looked as if technology would kill off the written word, as phones rendered writing obsolete, but now, e-mail and blogging have brought writing back. And e-bay and amazon have brought back getting exciting parcels in the post. It's weird, but thanks to the information super highway, I now have brown paper in the house again.

So at least the internet is something different, whereas some technology is just making things electric. And in most cases it's not necessary. The electric pencil sharpener? How hard is sharpening a pencil? Who needs to sharpen their pencil as quickly as possible and get back to their important pencil based work? If you're using a pencil, it's not that important, that's why you're doing it with a pencil.

How about the electric door? It's not hard to open a door, but it can be left open, causing a draft - so the electric door is really self closing, more than self opening. But I'll tell you where you don't need an electric door - on a toilet, on a train. I'm speaking of course of the new virgin train toilets, which have 3 buttons - open, close and lock. Why close AND lock? Who goes to the toilet on the train and doesn't take up the option of locking the door? What's more, you can't lock until the door is fully closed. This safety feature, which incidentally is a feature of traditional doors too, is to stop scally wags who would press a single close/lock button, then leap out leaving the toilet locked but empty. But most people don't know this. Which is why last time I was on a train a young woman went in, pressed close and lock together and presumed the door was locked. And 2 minutes later I pressed open and revealed her upon the throne.

And 'reveal' is the apt word, this huge curved door slides magically back, revealling the occupant like a prize in some dirty European quiz show- "Eh Paulo es victor! Eh con prizee especiale - una senioritta urinato!!!" It's like some weird pervert vending machine. We've all seen tramps checking the change slots of phones 'on the off chance'. Well, I think a similar habit will be seen on virgin trains.

In conclusion, not everything needs to be electric. And this goes for the suggestion of one of the 'most inventive people in the world' according to the ads enouraging us to teach. They do so by claiming 14 year olds aren't disgusting idiot heathens. One girl claims a good idea for an invention is 'electric killing sheep'. We've already got sheep and they run on grass, which seems highly efficient. And the fact that they don't kill you also seems like a bonus. If this girl is in your class, don't put her on televsion, send her to the school psychologist.