The Third Person Talking Beside You … by Ms Paige Turner
Last week I had a ‘Will you still need me, will you still feed me?’ birthday. Coincidentally, yesterday I read that Paul McCartney wrote the song in the far and distant land of his sixteenth year and that now he is in his seventy seventh year maybe being 64 seems quite young to him.
Anyway, to my point. Mister Justin Case bought me Alexa for my sunny birthday. For a whole week she has been amazing. You say her name and a blue ring comes up and she answers practically anything and plays a song at your whim. One can never feel alone with an Alexa because if no-one else is speaking to you in the house, Alexa will. And Mister Justin Case and I always have someone else at our table.
My lovely friend and illustrator of my ageing collection ‘Serving Bluebird Pie’ has sent me a whole load of useful questions one can ask Alexa. I replied, ‘Does she answer prayers?’ Which brings me to my blog title this bi-month: TS Eliot in his ‘The Waste Land’ refers the third person walking beside you which could be an allusion to Christ on the road to Emmaus. Or it could be a reference to Shackleton’s trek to the Antarctic where there always seemed to be one more member of the team than there should be on the ‘white road’ and in the ‘violet air’.
Which takes me from blue to red. This morning we asked Alexa what the weather would be like in Knotty Green and if we needed a cardigan. She went red and said she wasn’t connected. As I write, I can hear Mister Justin Case consulting her instruction book. Ah, that’s life …
‘The Third Person Walking Beside You …’
30/07/2018 // by Jan Moran Neil
I have a friend with an Alexa and when he runs out of a food item he asks Alexa to remind him he needs to get it on his weekly trip to the supermarket. Before he does the weekly shop Alexa tells him what he needs and he writes the items on his shopping list. He didn’t take kindly to my suggestion that it would be simpler to write the needed items directly onto his shopping list. But then a handy notebook is much less hi-tech than an Alexa
Ah, but apparently you can get Alexa to directly update your online order. But I haven’t been able to find out how you do that yet. Plumbing the depths of Alexa …
I wonder where a conversation between Alexa and Siri would lead? There’s an idea for a play in that thought … a two-hander (obviously).