pager

ahlaan bik

yes i do, believe it or not, appreciate that this should perhaps not be the main thing to take away from recent news. equally it is true that i can stand accused of being "inappropriate" here, look you see. such allegations are not new and also not entirely denied. but all the same, i was rather fascinated to note in the news the return of the pager, if not (quite) for the intended use. 

when had i last considered, or thought of, a pager? not for a few decades, i would think. once the mobile phone became profligate the device so treasured by those wishing to appear important became as redundant as it did obsolete.  yes, it has been fun explaining the basic idea behind a pager to those of the generation of this century. 

for those of you baffled (or just curious) as to what a pager was (or "is"), well it was like a sort of radio or whatever thing, long before we had constant communication, where you could alert someone of presumed importance when they were required urgently. 80s and (very) early 90s films were littered with doctors, lawyers and such that had them, with a bleep on their device (often attached to their belt) saw them rushing off to a payphone to get the message someone had left. 

thank you for the picture

as far as i am aware the only people i knew what ever had a pager were Spiros and his brother. no, i am not sure what level of importance they felt they had to need one, but have one they did. from what i can remember i left the odd "f*** off" or similar message for Spiros to call and hear, whereas i treated his brother to aspects (or elements) of really, really bad songs that were on the radio. don't think i ever saw anyone actually get a pager "bleep" and need to rush off for an emergency or what have you, which speaks volumes of any limited social circle that i have held. 

how likely are we to see a revival of the pager? not at all. if anything it will be that the most recent news events will simply see all existing pager technology (or use) banned, because them in power just love to ban things as it's a way of showing they are "doing stuff" and an easy flex of control. quite a shame, really, as it's been a lovely reminder of a time when we did not feel obliged to be in touch and contactable at all times for anything, with sufficient means existing to reach someone in the instance of an unfortunate, extreme emergency. 

still, it would be nice if this heralded a return of other now obsolete forms of communication. 

thank you for the picture

realistically, if not essentially, we should be embracing the simplicity, the efficiency, the accuracy and the relative privacy of the fax machine. as i have commented on before, though, the world is trying to get rid of them all. no one has ever caused mayhem by pressing "reply to all" on a fax, and nor has anyone ever accidentally sent esoteric pictures to their mother via a fax machine. deliberately, perhaps, but this is not important right now. indeed it was quite class to phone someone from a fax machine and hear their distress as they just heard a whole load of electronic waffle.  

no, i never did have a pager myself. despite the obvious risks to them, yes it is (reasonably) tempting to maybe get one now. as far as i am aware you can't actually get them off of any provider here in the UK these days, and it might look suspicious if i started going around making enquiries. 

the only "legacy" form of communication we  appear to retain is the written, posted letter. even then it's very much the case that Royal Mail and/or the Post Office here in England are trying their absolute best to stop people using that too. perhaps not, but we may come to regret letting go of perfectly fine means of correspondence for "better" technology. 

תהיו מצויינים אחד לשני!!!!!!!!!!!!!!