Techno Luddite

If you are reading this then we have both pressed the right keys in the right order and therefore can claim to be technos. However, it seems strange to me that whilst we embrace this wonderful world of technology we also love to engage in a pastime that can be totally free of it. So is it good or bad?

 

Dorking is a quaint little market town with some odd ways about it. Full of small independent stores it feels no need to open much before 9.30am and sometimes shut up at 5.30pm if trade is poor. 10 years ago it still had an early closing day! but it can boast an old fashioned ironmongers at which I purchased my onion sets from the sack. 100 each of Red Barron and Stetton which were duly weighed on an old balance scale and paid for. It seemed a bit light for the price but we rely on trust so you can imagine my chagrin when weighed at home it came up a whole kilo less. Was I annoyed - yes, but also philosophical as they were still very much cheaper than down the garden centre and I had picked the best ones myself.

 

We also have in Dorking a Friday market. The greengrocer stall is always very popular and standing in line to pay for a small item I marvel at the mental agility of the stallholder as he calculates the price per kilo for each vegetable (this time on electronic scales) whilst keeping a running total in his head of the final bill. When the lady in front left with four bags of veg she had paid a whopping £50+. Now maybe growing our own has blunted our perception of the true cost of things - had it not been for the appalling harvest last year.

 

At a supermarket near us they have introduced hand scanners so you do not need to queue at the checkout and with no veg in these hungry months I found myself scanning and weighing a weeks worth of vegetables (two bags) that came to just over £14. Now of course you'll be saying the market veg are fresher and better had not the small item I'd purchased been a 'lover-ly ripe pineapple' that still had the label of a notorious supermarket, that is know to reject deliveries if not perfect, beginning with 'T'.

 

The bakers dozen (13) is an old term that ensured you got full weight when buying bread, the penalties were severe on any baker selling underweight. Even now with technology the trading standard officer will still go round checking scales, and had it not been for technology we would never have known that those beef pies we were eating were in fact horse.

 

 In conclusion technology is good and I embrace it wholeheartedly but I'll still dig my plot with a spade!