Technology Bytes

You see I hate flying. I am not a good passenger. Aeroplanes and I are anathema to one another. Before I came to Moscow I could not have taken a kite out for the afternoon on frequent flyer miles. Prior to my twenty-seventh birthday I had taken two return flights and that was more than enough for me thank you very much. Things have changed due the circumstances of my employment for an international news station in such a vast country, but my hackles still rise at the thought of trusting my life and immortal soul (It's so hard to find a good confessional in modern airports, don't you find?)to an enlarged cigar tube navigated by a man in the frankly weird uniform of short sleeves and a tie.

Please spare me the statistics, I have no interest in them. You can prove anything you like with facts, in my opinion. What we are dealing with here is the baseless belief that I am doomed to a slow, and mentally tortuous, death as soon as I walk past the impossibly made up lady who checks the tickets with a joyless smile on her face that is perhaps rendered all the more unbelievable by the fact you know that uniform and those heels are just not in any way comfortable.

The horrors for me begin with the safety demonstration. You see I was carefully brought up and right up there with her sage advice to look both ways before crossing the road and not to trust strangers in dirty macintoshes who offered to show me puppies, mummy told me not to trust people who will tell you bald faced lies while looking you dead in the eye. One may smile, and smile and be a villain, even in silly shoes and an itchy uniform. And so it begins, all that old guff about "In the unlikely event of an emergency landing over water." Oh please!! Have you ever belly flopped into a pool and felt that sharp smack like a child's reprimand hit you across torso from nipples to navel? Yeah? In the unlikely event we hit the water we'll be spread for miles, whether or not I curl up in a little ball. I shall never have the opportunity to tear the slide with my shoes, pop up the air supply in my life jacket or blow that silly little whistle. I'm twenty-eight not eight, lets discuss a plane crash like adults please Miss Stewardess, no sugar with the pill, if you don't mind. I want an airline I can believe in. Should anyone approach me as a media non-entity who would do the job for a bag of crisps and a can of Fanta my own safety announcement would run something as follows:

"In the unlikely event we crash into the sea, (but let's face it if you spin a roulette wheel enough times all the numbers come up once in a while don't they?), then we're all probably going to die. We did our best, but that's life, eh. What can you say? So if we get the nod that we're all about to spin off this mortal coil then we'll be going up and down the aisles as fast as we can throwing items of duty free at you to enjoy, we can take none of it with us, so fill your boots up. While you're at it feel free to smoke, use mobile phones and if you so desire attempt hasty and embarrassment free copulation with the person next to you, no-one will be telling on you now will they?"

At least I would feel that my intelligence, such as it is, was not being insulted.

But anyway. Flying is something I have been doing a lot this month in preparation for our new aviation show. Sergey, our frighteningly good, very persuasive Director, has had me tripping through the clouds in Gyrocopters that look like something the A-team knocked up under the influence of strong and heady liquor, and microlights so tiny and weeny that the little perishers allow you to feel every little puff and whisper of wind like a hurricane buffeting you about the midships. All while filming my terrified reactions so you can titter at the silly little man on the telly imploring God to deliver him from evil.

At times I felt like some harrowing chapters deleted from the Book of Job so as not to scare the Gideons.

Still, it looks like it should be a good watch for you all, and aside from the silly man screaming there are quite a few things you might find interesting if you like flying and such pastimes. Or if you are a sadist who likes to watch real human suffering close up.

I bet you do, you look the type.

I left lovely Moscow and went back to my rural homelands in the far north of England and escaped the 21st century all together. It was great. I enjoyed simple pleasures that our generation seldom get to experience. I spurned the internet, my mobile phone, GPS and all of that type of thing. It was a blissful break.

Picture the scene. It was a quiet Sunday evening. I was ensconced in my favourite chair in my mum and dad’s house. The dog was asleep on my lap and I was holding a glass of something flavorful of a vintage that to my expert palette was definitely red. The house phone rings, and I simply lolled the head to one side and announced that should this call be for me I was not in. When was the last time you could get Callminder to tell your friends, the taxman, the bank or some other troublesome sod lies to prevent you having to get up? Never, that’s when.

Plans to meet up with friends were not changed. As I had no device for people to announce that they’d be 45 minutes late and meet us in another bar, or the restaurant or whatever. I arrived at the set venue ten minutes tardy and everyone was there. It was like I’d organised my own surprise party.

No facebook updates, no offers for cut-price viagra, no frankly unfeasible requests from seemingly very accommodating college students in America begging me to add them on MSN because I look “hot”. Let’s be honest, you and me: if you really are a highly desirable co-ed, you are not trawling the web looking for portly, pasty journalists of below average height to have typed conversations with when you could be out having real fun.

I did not miss the internet.

I got merrily lost walking the dog in the forests and although it all took an hour longer than I expected, it was far more fun than having a route carved out for you by a dull system of satellites. Molly and I would never had been chased by cows had we stuck to the footpath, and I would still be oblivious to the fact that I can still hurdle a barbed wire fence when the need arises, even if I have gone a bit native.

So, I’m back now... pardon your prodigal correspondent and let’s carry on where we left off. And I like my phone and being able to be flexible. I thank the good lord (be that Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Peter Clohessy, whoever) for Google and the Internet and the ability to book flights online. And without GPS, Moscow is just a giant grid of parked cars.

So, to continue the tortured relationship trope I’ve been trotting out all through this entry, I guess, dear reader, my view of you is the same as my view of the 21st century’s gadgets and gizmos. I adore you to bits, but I don’t want you in my life every day. That’s love I suppose. x

And then I managed to damage my foot on the last of Moscow's icy steps before the current balmy interlude, and limped becrutched around the city for the best part of two weeks cursing my stars for rotten luck - my stars and the cab drivers who made a pretty penny from my condition as I was unable to use the metro easily with my tripod gait. Don't believe me? Go and Youtube our latest "Glonass" program, and if you are as eagle-eyed as my dear mother, you'll spot a John Waynesque walk as I talk to the camera.

Anyway, if any of you have kept faith with me, and I trust my previous diligence means a couple of you might have, you may be wondering why the wanderer has returned. Well, on RT at the moment I'm interviewing spacemen. Not little green ones I may or may not have imagined under anaesthesia on the operating table, either. I mean real bona fide Cosmonauts.

It was an absolute pleasure. A Canadian, a Russian, and a European about to go off for six months and further our knowledge of the solar system, and allow their bodies to be experimented on in order to bring closer that great adventure science has planned for a manned trip to Mars. Generous with their time and knowledge, incredibly thoughtful, and as lively an interview panel as a journalist could hope to meet, it was an easy day's work, and a huge amount of fun.

And all credit to you, the RT viewers as well, because it was you who supplied the questions. Maximum points to all those who contributed a query, as they were as intelligent and pertinent as the answers the guys gave you.

If you get the chance, do check it out either on the channel or here on the website. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

If you've read this and not written me off weeks ago as a feckless wastrel then thank you. I'll try to be more prolific in the future.

And before I go, a special "get well soon" to the convalescing and the crutch-bound as you have my sincere sympathy, brothers and sisters.

As always, if anyone has any ideas for programs or features you'd like us here on Tech Update to cover, do drop me a line. I promise we do investigate all your suggestions, and even if you haven't seen one you've given to us on the show yet, it doesn't mean we've forgotten about you or that you won't see it soon.

It's been nice to chat, let's not leave it so long next time!