Everything’s always on... apart from my Wi-Fi

“WE are giving you a free month, as an apology,” said the delightful lady from Sky TV.

The “free month” being an apology for somehow presiding over an almost catastrophic loss of a service that I pay handsomely for them to provide.

I’d been trying to download early versions of the very pages you’re now reading to check them for any unlikely mistakes made by either me or my esteemed colleagues.

But my Wi-Fi seemed to suddenly have been reduced from a fairly steady stream of information-packed internet juice to a stuttering, mostly useless, trickle.

So I rang Sky, who provide my broadband, and spoke to the nice lady.

I am meant to get, she explained, at the very bare minimum, as per Sky’s “promise”, 17Mbps over Wi-Fi.

I remembered averaging about 24 – nowhere near the 64 claimed when they plugged me into their system, but as that was hard-wired speed instead of Wi-Fi, I could accept it.

Besides, we’re not gamers in our house. We don’t even have a console.

Streaming

The nearest we get to streaming is bingeing on Netflix or a boxset.

But we do each have a mobile and a tablet that are all Wi-Fied up to the account.

The laptop I’m tapping on is the same.

After that, there’s the Alexa Echo blinking away in the corner, slyly recording every word we say.

And the smart soundbar. Attached to the smart TV.

And the smart speaker I never use but which is also plugged into a live socket in the kitchen.

In the bedroom, we’ve got another, almost never used TV, which itself has a Sky box pumping more Sky services into it. Both are permanently switched on. So are the electric toothbrush chargers.

And we haven’t turned off the “big telly” or its Sky Q box or any of the attached things complementing it for, quite literally, years.

In the kitchen, the washing machine remains plugged in all night despite the fact it will never, ever be used in those times.

Sure, the freezer keeps the food frozen, and the fridge keeps it chilled, but why is the microwave flashing the time at me – and, as ever, an hour out?

Or the main oven. Does it also need to know the time? Does it need to be “on” when it’s doing nothing else?

Like many others of my generation, I grew up with parents who would follow me around our family home smacking the back of my hand if I left a light on.

Now, everything is on, all of the time.

And the irony is, it is the young who are now the most rapacious of energy users while simultaneously blaming my generation for their own ravenous use of electricity.

The Greta Thunberg-inspired hordes will pour milk onto department store floors and glue themselves to Tube trains.

They will poor a bucket of shit over a memorial to the late, great, Sir Tom Moore. Daub a Churchill statue in paint. Drill through a bank’s windows. All in the name of “direct action”. But try even just asking them to turn their tech off. To save the planet, and everything. “Not now!” they’ll hiss, impatiently, pulling up their hoodies and returning instantly to their shiny screens.

“I’m trying to fix all the things YOU f**ked up for us.”

Except for my broadband, which remains stubbornly unfixed, because, just like youthful idiots, it actually needs a grown-up to sort out.