Why doesn’t technology just do what it is told?

IS IT just me? This issue with technology where everything goes wrong nearly all of the time? I suspect it might be.

I seem to emit a strange electric charge that turns a device that works perfectly fine for everyone else into a malfunctioning klutz.

From the first moment I press a key, push a button or scroll a screen something can go wrong.

Even the television and its two remotes, which between them offer me multiple choices, often end up with me watching a blank screen.

I have to wait until somebody comes into the room, sighs and unzaps whatever it is I had just zapped.

Last week I was given a lovely present of bluetooth headphones. Neatly designed, they wrap around the back of my head, no cord tangling with the dog lead. Completely nuisance free.

Except: there is always an except with me when it comes to anything designed after 1999.

There is a tiny little button on the left side where you can dictate your options. But every time I switch tracks via Spotify this intuitive machine calls the last person I dialled.

Instead of getting Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ I get the impatient voice of my doctor’s receptionist.

Even when I tried to tune into John Creedon, I found myself in a queue for AIB customer service.

It might have helped if I had read the instructions on the box first, but who has the time? Well, I have actually. Still, life’s too short and the type is too small.

At this stage I’m terrified of what I might do next. Hack the Kremlin? This thing dangling off the back of my head seems liable to do anything other than play silly pop songs.

My laptop doesn’t like me much either. Truth is, the feeling is mutual.

It can’t do the simplest things without creating a fuss. Hissy fits are its regular response to the most modest of requests.

It crashes the internet and sulks when I try to get it back up.

Microsoft Word keeps warning me that it isn’t responding and it’s worse at saving than David de Gea.

And Google Drive? Never needed it and I do not trust it.

All I ever wanted from a laptop was a typewriter with pictures. These things are too clever by half, offering me functions I don’t need. Then they seem incapable of carrying out the simplest of requests.

When I seek help from any millennial in the room (bought and paid for children of my own) the evil thing comes over all smiley and helpful. No bother, thanks for asking. Anytime.

I am not a Luddite, though I do think history has been harsh on them. What the Luddites did at the time seems perfectly reasonable to me.

I even acknowledge that gadgets and gizmos, the internet of things and all the rest of it, have transformed our world.

But why can’t I just switch these things on and off and get them to do what I want?

Why do they have to be so smart arsed all the time?

Sometimes I even think they are watching me, listening and waiting, playing silly buggers with this 20th century dinosaur who grew up with a 19-inch black and white Pye television and one channel. Someone who remembers vinyl the first time around.

Snigger if you like but at least when I flipped over Abbey Road to listen to the second side I knew exactly what I was going to get.

If you receive a call from an unknown number any time soon, don’t pick up. It is probably just me trying to get my posh headset to play the new Bob Dylan album. Times sure have a-changed.