Grandad's Chair

I am in fairly equal measure mesmerised and disappointed by technology.

And I think about all the bits and pieces I own, and back to the things I dreamed of as a kid. I think back to my father, and grandfather, and their technology.

When my father was a teenager his family was one of the first in their neighbourhood to have a television. Friends and family would huddle round in excitement to watch a test card. A miracle of the modern age.

And now, with television in high definition, being beamed from satellites, and bounced around our houses wirelessly, to be finally viewed on mobile telephones (which, incidentally, are used ever less for actually talking to people).

All I have of my either of my grandfathers, as I have no living memories of them, are a few photographs and a smoking chair. But that chair has emotion and character, a chair worth sitting in. It does what it should.

Why then am I surrounded by poorly designed, frustrating to use, badly made technology? From televisions which have been around long enough to fix these problems, computers and phones with user interfaces which don't consider the user, to supermarket self-service checkouts which are so hideous to use I find it hard to believe they were "designed" at all.

In this age of information, where design is so important, we have forgotten how to make chairs.

Please. World. Make things well. Be proud.

Track 12
They Might Be Giants
Everything Right Is Wrong Again

I saw these guys in Glasgow a decade or two ago still one of the best gigs I have seen.