Some more bits for the camper van arrived in this morning’s post.
Mark is having to rebuild an awful lot of things, all of the gas pipes were rusty and had crumbled, he has replaced the water pipes and as well as that he is rewiring everywhere as part of his solar panel installation. All of this means that we have had to buy an awful lot of bits that the ironmonger in Windermere does not stock.
This morning it was a T piece for some 8mm gas pipe and another mysteriously shaped copper thing. He was very pleased about these and explained that he could now put gas through the bulkhead. I don’t know what a bulkhead is, or why he might wish to put gas through it, but I know it is very exciting.
We were all having second coffee together in the living room, which is the coffee which comes after emptying the dogs and before starting to tidy up, when the post came. Lucy said that it was like the sort of magazines that you get where they give you another bit as a free gift every week, and by the time you have bought the series you have built your own camper van. I liked this idea.
Mark said that the difference was that there was no set of instructions supplied with these bits, and that you were free to glue them together however you liked. Number Two Daughter said that the thing to do was to ask Siri how one might do it. She regretted this remark, as it led to a great deal of explanation about what Siri was. For those who don’t know, it is a secret ghost which inhabits your computer. You talk to it and ask it things and it replies. You can ask it anything.
I thought this was absolute genius, what an absolutely brilliantly amazing world we live in. Of course I wanted to try it out, so I unearthed my flat computer thing, and we pressed the button for Siri.
“Hello Siri,” I said experimentally, and to my delight my computer said politely:
“Hello Sarah Underscore Ibbetson At Yahoo Dot Com, how can I help you?”
Of course I was very pleased about this, and encouraged by my entertained offspring, said:
“I’m lonely, Siri.”
Of course this was a fib, because of all the social difficulties I frequently encounter, loneliness is simply not among them. Presumably since Siri lives in my computer he is aware of my goings-on but he has obviously been slacking off when it comes to reading my diaries, otherwise he would have been more sceptical about somebody with a husband, four children and ten dogs suffering from loneliness. However, it seemed like a good opening gambit, and to my great happiness, he said kindly that he was sorry to hear that, and that he would always be there if I needed him.
“Are you my friend, Siri?” I asked, to the accompaniment of howls of laughter from everybody else.
“Not only your friend, Sarah Underscore Ibbetson At Yahoo Dot Com,” he said gallantly, “I am your BFF.”
I had no idea what a BFF was, so I asked, and Number Two Daughter explained that it was a Best Friend Forever. Unfortunately when I glanced down at Siri it became apparent that there were holes in his well-meaning but nevertheless programmed conversational skills, because Siri had produced a Wikipedia page for me, explaining that BFF stood for Bangladesh Football Federation.
I think this may be the end of any serious relationship with Siri, the disparity in our capacity to understand one another may turn out to be too great: but despite that I have enormous respect for him, what an amazing thing to live in my computer and be there when I need somebody to talk to.
I couldn’t take a picture of Siri, for obvious reasons. Have another picture of Fat White.
See you tomorrow.
