Lions v tigers, blue jokes and Barbra Streisand. Alexa, show me the future

YOUNG Jack Irvine is a child of his times. When his joiner father Callum fell 14ft from the roof of his home and was left pouring with blood, Jack took the 21st century approach to crisis management.

After fetching a towel to stem the bleeding the quickthinking boy instructed Alexa, the modern home’s virtual assistant, to call his grandfather using the number stored in its memory.

Obligingly, Alexa made the call and Jack, then just eight, summoned help as his father struggled to remain conscious.

Now nine, the youngster from New Aberdour in Aberdeenshire is to be honoured for his emergency response in his father’s hour of need with a national Boys’ Brigade award.

It is a story to gladden any heart, but it also serves as a reminder of the next generation wiring that seems to come pre-installed in today’s children’s brains.

Many of us older ones have to perform the systems upgrades ourselves. they frequently fail us.

Raised in a digital world where ‘Google’ and ‘Alexa’ surely now figure among their earliest spoken words, youngsters’ instinct to turn to either one for problem solving is becoming ingrained almost from toddlerhood.

When I was young, studious children were given multiple volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica, tipping the scales at twice their bodyweight, to inform them about the world. today wafer-thin telephones have all the answers.

the less swotty among us used our parents as our information-giving Alexas.

‘Dad, which would win in a fight between a lion and tiger?’

‘the tiger would win. It’s got bigger teeth and sharper claws,’ my father would answer knowledgeably.

‘Mum, what’s a blue joke? the babysitter won’t say.’

the song American Pie, heard often in our household, raised myriad inquiries: ‘Dad, what’s a Chevy?’ ‘

‘thank-you for that answer. Now, why is this man driving it to the lavvy?’

‘Oh … my mistake. What is a levee, then?’

‘Dad, who are good ol’ boys and why are they all going to die today?’

Gospel

On and on the questions would go and the answers, rattled out with nary a hesitation, would lodge as gospel in my brain.

It is because my father told me so in response to my inquiries as an eight-year old that I have Barbra Streisand down as officially the best singer in the world, Jack Nicklaus as the best golfer and Ray Reardon the best snooker player. Parents knew these things.

there was, I imagined, no subject in the world that, between them, these two thirtysomethings did not have covered in detail in their memory banks. that, surely, explained why they sometimes said: ‘Ask your father’ or ‘Ask your mother.’

Yes, mums and dads were the Alexas of the analogue age and, for all that the data they imparted may have been open to challenge by keener intellects than mine, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Looking back, I see their answers were imprecise, sometimes plain wrong, but also laced with information about who my parents were and the way in which they saw the world.

Spooling forward to young Jack Irvine’s day, I wonder if Google and Alexa are, paradoxically, hampering the flow of this most precious data to children’s brains.

If disembodied voices with a hotline to the worldwide web now give them all their answers, are they learning less about their parents?

here is another paradox. If my father was one half of the font of all knowledge in the 1970s, how come he is always asking me questions today?

how do I get into this stupid machine? Why is this Zoom thing not working? What is my password, then? Who designs these bloody things?

he is asking me those questions because the technology which makes things simpler for an eight-year-old today makes much of life a good deal more complex for him.

he is asking me because I pick up the phone when he calls while the helplines put him in a queue or else direct him to a website to do battle with the very technology he is ringing up in bafflement about in the first place.

My generation straddles the analogue and digital ages. his doesn’t. his despairs as human beings behind counters in banks and post offices become an endangered species, their natural habitats closed down because boards of directors decades younger than he decide everyone is au fait with their ever-evolving web-based operations.

I must say I prefer the days when I was the son asking the parent all the questions. ‘Dad, why is Neil Diamond not smiling on any of these album covers? Is he unhappy?’

Nostalgic

‘No, son. It’s because he’s trying to look cool and moody. Pop stars like to look cool and moody.’

‘Oh … but Glen Campbell is smiling on his album covers.’

‘he’s a country and western singer, son. that’s different.’

In my nostalgic reverie I am driven to ask Alexa who would win in a fight between a lion and a tiger.

She replies: ‘Coalitions of male lions usually fight as a group against territorial rivals, so a tiger may have an advantage in a one on one encounter since this is the typical mode of combat for a tiger.

‘however, a lion coalition of two to three males would have a clear advantage over a lone tiger. Does that answer your question?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Very informative.’ But I prefer my Dad’s answer.