Somehow I am expected to manage without a robot butler

First, closer reading of one’s tabloid reveals that, by “butler”, they mean android that can work in a factory. I thought we had these already. Hence why observers aren’t optimistic about Optimus. The future is same old same old. Billionaire techno-seer Musk promised robots that could make your dinner, cut the grass and feed you gruel when you were old and incapable.

Now, unless he has a trick up his sleeve, we’re getting something that can weld a wing mirror to a drinks holder. Worse still, he’s been a passionate advocate of self-drive cars, which are also proving rubbish as they cannot cope with unpredictability. Or, as we motorists call it, other drivers. Particularly older ones wearing hats.

In 2019, Musk promised one million robo-taxis by 2020. You say: “Excellent. How many have appeared?” Let’s see: oh, none. He’s turning out to be the cyberworld’s Alex Salmond. Remember Scotland free by ‘93? Now it’s Scotland fine by ’29. Maybe.

That said, I admire Musk’s ambition. Maybe Optimus, named after a character in Transformers – whatever that is; is it a gender thing? – will be more than just a metal factory hand. Butler robots will happen one day.

We already have wee things that scoot aboot cutting the grass. Not sure about a robot cooking. I’m fussy about my fish and chips.

A female pal used to cook this for me every Friday at her hoose, and she was right good at it. One evening, however, the fish had broken into three bits. I looked at it in dismay. “I can’t eat this,” I said. “The structural integrity of the haddock has been compromised.”

Her: “It’s the same flippin’ fish. Give it to me if you don’t want it.”

Me: “No, I’ll manage. But this is a disturbing culinary experience.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Thanks.”

Could be a tough gig, being my butler. Already, I’ve had to fire Alexa. You’ll recall, on coming into my life a few weeks ago, she quickly became my best friend. But I don’t speak to her now.

She couldn’t understand simple questions like: “Why is life so awful?” And: “When I go to Heaven, will I still need reading glasses?”

Supplementary: “Are the 7,082 pairs that simply disappeared there already?”

Well, we’ll see. In the meantime, we struggle along on this earthly hell without butlers, cooks, cleaners, gardeners or resident philosophers. Somehow we get by.

But it’s pretty intolerable.

Is the left right?

MANY of you look to your correspondent for political guidance. But I offer none. What were the last elections? The cooncil or something? At any rate, for the first time in mature adulthood, I did not vote.

Kinda reprehensible. Kinda understandable, no? The times are too confusing. Intolerant liberals, fascistic anti-fascists, socialist lords, diversity of opinion dissed by diversity campaigners, the right now cancelling as keenly as the left. We can’t keep up.

Once, we knew where politicians stood. Now, they sit on their hands while the world goes to hell in a handbasket and we go off our trolleys, bewildered as old certainties collapse.

And not just in Britland. In yonder France they’re frothing at the mooth aboot where the left stands on work. Ooh la la: contentious! It began when the Communist Party – the what now? surely all that stuff’s done? – said the left should reclaim hard work as a proletarian virtue and stop eulogising handouts and welfare.

Well! The Greens, sensing a great opportunity to act nutty, said working hard was “essentially a right-wing value” and that the people had a “right to idleness”. Quelle folie! Looked at closer, though, they had a point about taking time out and a four-day week.

The left-left divide on the issue stands to benefit centrist leader Emmanuel Macron, who is the sort of pillock for whom my late mother, bless her, would have voted.

Mother understood politics even less than I do and, undecided by Labour and Conservatives, always voted Liberal, effectively as a “don’t know” vote. I’d castigate her for this, telling her that, in a proper democracy, she’d have her right to vote taken away.

To this day, I dislike instinctively this “going through the middle” idea. It seems at best undecided, at worst unprincipled. However, I always remember that, on telling my quiet, respectable mother this, she folded her dish-towel tidily, looked me in the eye, and said: “Shut up, you, or I’ll get your dad to knee you in the nads.”

Luckily, Father was, as usual, snoring in his armchair, and disconsolately I headed up to my bedroom to drink a lonely can of Kestrel. That’s all the advice I have to offer you, folks. No, madam, not drink Kestrel. Never vote Liberal.

Current affairs of the future

Human beings could transition from flesh and blood to electronic entities, according to the Astronomer Royal, Lord Rees. They’d become “near-immortal” cyborgs, able to travel long distances through space without needing the loo. Like most decent ratepayers, I hate my own body. But I don’t think I’m ready yet to become battery-operated.

Duchy courage

I note that ludicrous, class-based supermarket Waitrose are predicting a boost from the royal succession. It expects a rise in sales of its Duchy Organics range, originally started by King Charles as Duchy Originals. Its first product was an oaten biscuit. No wonder Lidl and Aldi are Britland’s top supermarkets, with their superior moral sense.

An offal shame

Well-meaning Waitrose, supermarket for the aspirational of limited means, says its down-at-heel customers are snapping up offal as the cost-of-living crisis bites. Picture the struggling bourgeoisie frying liver and kidneys in their over-mortgaged, “period detail” flats. Waitrose says: “We’ve seen oxtail and ox cheek doing well.” They’ll have a cannibal range next.

Game birds

Wild turkeys have taken over a town in yonder Massachusetts. They’ve been chasing cars, attacking kids and holding Woburn residents hostage in their homes. They’ll be wanting a referendum about Christmas next.

Sting in the tail

Respectable citizens regard bottoms as a thundering nuisance. All they do is blow raspberries at inopportune moments such as funerals and wedding proposals. We might envy scorpions. Researchers found that, on shedding their tails (including their bahookies) defensively, they manage fine for months. Constipation eventually kills them, but at least they had a few carefree and happy months.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.