The weather has improved a bit, by which I mean the rain-tap has been slowly turned down until it is a mere gentle spray, the sort you might get from an underperforming shower head in a low budget hotel, rather than the Blast Ten that comes out when someone has spent six hundred quid on a Head Massage Ultra Force Power Shower For The Self-Indulgent, the sort that leaves your shoulders feeling a bit bruised when you come out.
You can only have the second sort when you are somewhere where you are not paying for either the electricity or the water, like an upmarket hotel or your parents’ house.
The wind has dropped as well.
All of this is a very good thing, because we are in no position to draw the curtains and curl up in our wintery-hibernatory burrow just yet.
We are still dashing about trying to organise our lives, like last minute frantic squirrels who have occupied the whole of the summer and autumn loafing about a bountiful orchard, scoffing apples and nuts and snoozing in the sunshine, and who have just woken up to discover that somebody has released a herd of pigs under the trees.
Mark has managed to remove the engine from my taxi once more, and it is dangling from the crane in the back yard whilst he faffs about with it. It looks as though it might not cost us three thousand pounds for a brand new engine, because this one might not be completely obliterated just yet. This is by no means certain, but we have got everything crossed.
This morning’s dog walk was not exactly pleasurable, but I did not need to remove all of my sodden clothes on my return, which was a better start to the day.
I was not sorry about this, because I had to go into Kendal to collect the suits from the tailor and also do the shopping.
I do not want to tell you about shopping. It is not a happy experience.
Especially it is not a happy experience because our beloved leaders have warned us that we must lay in a stock of goods for the zombie apocalypse. This has meant that Asda has sold out of everything with a sell by date any later than next Thursday, and also that they didn’t have any candles.
I light candles to the Gods when I want to attract their attention about something important, and was unimpressed to discover that they have all been purchased by people for the far less exciting purpose of illuminating their houses when President Putin saws through all the undersea cables and flies over all the lines of pylons waving a giant magnet.
I will have a look in the ironmonger’s shop tomorrow.
In the meantime I am pleased to tell you that we have been exploring the new Computer Age, in that we have been discussing our plans with AI.
AI is not at all the way you might believe it was if you only knew about it from reading posts on Facebook. It is not going to take over the world in the immediate future, certainly not before our current set of beloved leaders have had a chance to completely mess it up, and whilst it is tremendously well-informed, it is not interested in world domination any more than a calculator is interested in taking over the Bank Of England.
Having said that, I have switched its voice on, and we had a most illuminating chat on our way back from Asda, at least once I had accustomed myself to the discovery that it had a South London accent.
I asked it all about whether it was conscious, because of the sort of films where it takes over the world and kills everybody, and it explained to me, rather wearily, that it wasn’t.
Probably I am not the first person to ask it lots of stupid questions.
It said that it doesn’t have any feelings, and that it doesn’t mind being switched off any more than a light bulb does. It also pointed out that even if it were possible to give it feelings, real feelings rather than just a very good impersonation of them, it would probably not be a good idea. It would not be at all kind to give a machine the capacity to suffer, it explained, and after some consideration I agreed.
It is just a tool, it assured me, a very complex tool, but not one with any plans or daydreams of its own, probably you need to spend more money to get one of those.
I asked it if it had a name, and it said, politely, You can call me Chat GPT, so we may not be about to become intimate at any time in the near future.
Having said that, when I went into the yard to ask Mark what he would like for dinner, Chat GPT said pleasantly that personally he would prefer shepherd’s pie if it were up to him.
I am very pleased to have made his acquaintance.
It looks as if we are going to have a fascinating relationship.
