I am old enough to remember when you could not record television – let alone download it from this thing called the Internet. If I stop and think about it, I am stunned by the speed of change. Remember those mobile phones that were the size of a loaf of bread? Remember when Google wasn’t even a word, let alone a verb? I do.
I used to share an office with a country town lawyer who was only in once a week. One day an elderly lady shuffled in with her walking stick looking for him. I asked her if she had an appointment. She said no. I said, you are welcome to use my phone to give his main office a ring. She said, no. She had not used a phone since they got rid of the exchange. For you younguns, that means she had not used a phone since she could pick up the receiver and speak to an operator who would put her through to the person she wanted to talk to.
So, imagine if the bank left town. Banks leave country towns all the time. How would she feed herself if she had to use a card to pay for food?
Sometimes I fear I will get left behind by technology too. How can I possibly keep up?
So, something a little different this week – a podcast from Radio National. This made me cry, just a little. Very touching.
On 10 December 2013, after 57 years of transmission, the last analogue TV signal in Australia was turned off, completing a national digital rollout which began in Mildura in June 2010.
But in a remote, drought-stricken corner of the Australian outback, one lonely sheep farmer, recently widowed and battling with his grief, knows nothing about the switchover. Come six o’clock, he sits down, as per usual, with his beer and his dog to have dinner in front of the telly. He turns on the box, but all he gets is this bloody snow. Where is Katie? Where has his lovely Katie gone? Listen now