Google Predictive Death

Predictions are nearly always gloomy. They are rarely about good or happy things. It doesn’t matter whether the source is Nostradamus or your local TV weather presenter the forecast will always contain more grey skies and depressing precipitation than sunny weather and good times. Let’s face it, most predictions are synonymous with the end of the world anyway – and this is only backed up by modern science going one step further and predicting the eventual death of the entire universe according to their current theoretical model.

In short, if anyone can see the future it is always so dark you might as well forget about acquiring a pair of shades and go in for that heavy duty Maglite instead.

So why, with that in mind, do people and corporations persist in their thinking that predictive activity of any sort is a desirable thing?

Because I know to my cost that it isn’t.

Take Google predictive search.

Trying to guess what somebody is searching for is only ever going to be deeply annoying to the person doing the searching. It’s like going into a warehouse full of junk to search for a specific object only to be met by a doorman who holds up every single item contained within and who continually asks “Is it this? Is it this? Is it this?”

No. It effing isn’t. Just shut the eff up and I will tell you what I am searching for!

There are other problems too.

I’m currently 5 books into a 14 book serialised story. The first book was published over 20 years ago and the final instalment was only published last year. I have purposely – possibly insanely – not read the last 6 books. I got to a point and thought, “I’ll wait until they are all published and then start from the very beginning and read through them all, properly indulging myself.”

In an idle moment on Monday – it’s never good to be idle with the Google search box open in front of you; it only ever leads to trouble – I thought I’d type in the names of some of the main characters from the story just to see some fan art, just to see whether other people’s perceptions of what these characters looked like matched my own.

It should have been a harmless activity. I just wanted some pictures. Some casual art work.

Thanks to Google predictive text though, I’d no sooner typed in a particular character’s name when Google very kindly proffered the suggestion “[character’s name] dies in last book”.

I refused to follow the link. I even tried to unsee it. I tried to not remember it. Tried to wipe it out of my mind but I knew that would be an impossible task (see, another negative prediction).

I know how Google works. That suggestion was there because lots of other people have searched for it. And they’ve searched for it because it is a fact. So-and-so dies in the last book.

Great.

So I now know that this character is going to die. For all I’m trying not to let it, the knowledge is hanging over me now as I continue to make my way through book 5. And I know it’ll be there through book 6 and 7 and all the flaming rest.

Thank you, Google. Thanks a lot.

If I type in the word “butler” will you append the words “did it” to the end?

So. If anybody still wants a prediction allow me to provide one:

All predictions, whether by psychic or computer, are always, always going to lead to deep dissatisfaction.

And unlike Nostradamus’ my prediction is going to come true and come true very soon indeed.

I 100% guarantee it.

Book End

Despite not having wall cavity insulation the family homestead is always a toasty sanctuary even in the deepest cold of winter.

This, I am sure, is down to the sheer number of books that line our walls and bookshelves. Both Karen and I love books and, when we threw our lot in together, we found that we both gained through the other’s avidly acquisitional nature the equivalent of an entire rain forest’s worth of books.

I swear to God we have so many books it is probably not worth us ever buying new wallpaper. You can’t see the bloody walls so why bother with a nice bit of William Morris?

Although I’ve shed a few books over the years (half-hearted attempts at life laundry) I have on the whole always regretted such endeavours. A book is for life, not just for Christmas. They are old friends. Old haunts. Places of comfort, recovery and healing.

And when a book is particularly good I always plan in my heart to read it again. To pass that way at least one more time.

But you know what it’s like: there’s always a backlog of new books to get through – a most pleasurable chore if ever there was one – the chances of me re-reading the majority of my favourite books is a slim one at best but I’ve always lived in hope.

It is surely a sign of increasing agedness that that hope is beginning to wane.

I’m actually re-reading an old favourite at the moment – the first in a series of 14 that I plan to plough all the way through in an orgy of escapism – a book I first read 22 years ago. The final part was only published last year – a couple of years after the author’s death. This huge epic tale was the last story he ever wrote so it all gives my return to his world a certain frisson.

To sink into a familiar world with characters who are old friends is as comfy-making as drinking hot chocolate in bed and watching an old movie. It is good for the soul. And it makes me think how right I was to hang onto these books and not pass them on or sell them or throw them out. And it confirms in me the stance that I shall never be parted from these books because I would love the opportunity to read them again one more time.

But then it hit me.

If it’s taken me 22 years to re-read the first am I ever going to re-read them again? In another 22 years? In my sixties? If I’m lucky I might manage another rendezvous in my eighties but, really, how likely is that? I might be reading The Lady at that point – and that only for feeble titillation purposes.

I was a young naïve man when I first read this book. And now I’m a middle aged slightly learned man. Certainly I’m grumpier and more cynical.

And life seems shorter.

Too short to read all the new books I want and certainly too short to re-read all of the old ones.

I have to face facts: there are books within my horde that I am just never going to get to read again – no matter how much I might wish to and no matter how much I might try to never buy a new one (that would just be a fool’s labour).

But still I can’t bear to part with any of them.

They don’t just keep the house warm, you see… they keep me warm too.