It’s the Tropic of Yorkshire. Won’t be many braving those waters…. Actually a few surfers did give it a go. Talking to one of them as he headed out he mentioned having his warmest thermal suit on. That’s progress, I remember the surfers at my childhood seaside town. No thermal suits back then, it was smearing themselves with shedloads of LARD.

Progress is often held up by humans.

Quite a few places around here like football grounds and concert venues are switching to paperless entry systems. Time to get the mobile out of the pocket and use it as a ticket. Surely adding a ticket to the Wallet App and then waving the mobile screen vaguely in the direction of a scanner is something we can cope with.

Sadly not.

I ventured to see my team play football and encountered the stadiums new mobile ticket entrance system. Queues a million miles long. PROGRESS….

After an eternity I had made it to the turnstile and could see closeup that technology was struggling to cope with humans …. Hence the huge queue backlog.

One chap couldn’t seem to grasp the concept that waving the back of the phone and the back of his hand at the scanner isn’t ever going to work….

Then a guy got annoyed as he was refused entry for trying to get into the ground with a paper copy of the ticket. Clearly he didn’t register the meaning of the words on the ticket – ‘Paper copies of the ticket will not be accepted’. Phone left at home….

The next person did bring his mobile but hadn’t realised that he had to download the ticket to his phone. Surely the ticket just magically appears on the phone…

Not going well.

A mother and two children quickly gain entry, the system working seamlessly for them. Renewed belief in PROGRESS.

Then frustratingly it ground to a halt again. The next guy seemed to be doing everything correctly but nothing happened. After several attempts a senior steward arrived and asked what type of phone was he using.

“You what….”

Is it an IPhone or Android.

“I don’t ##@### know, it’s a phone….”

Eventually the Steward gave up trying to explain to the clearly LOST, he grabbed the unnamed phone and magic happened. The system let the man in.

The next person in the queue also failed to get the system to work even though he seemed to be doing exactly what he was instructed to do. When he was asked what type of phone he was using, he confidently responded…

“It’s an iPhone”

Odd that as I could clearly see Samsung emblazoned on his so called apple device.

He finally got the system to recognise him by appearing to hit his phone repeatedly into the scanner.

Finally my turn…. Disdain for the proceeding gross technological incompetence and overconfidence in my own skills.. The System refused my entry….

Well clearly if I try to scan a 2024 concert ticket for a 2023 Football Game, the system isn’t going to like that.

Ok now with the right ticket in the wallet.

Still refused entry and why is music now coming from my mobile. Clearly the entry system isn’t also going to like me accidentally flicking on the Amazon Music app and blasting out Aerosmith.

Finally the green entry light but the turnstile wouldn’t move. Still refused entry. What now.

Well this is my rubbish football team. Yes they have installed this new high tech scanner but it doesn’t operate the turnstile. It just lights up a Big Green Light. A steward then looks out for this big green light and then presses the old manual button to open the turnstile (the same button that has operated the turnstile for years). Well my particular steward had clearly seen far too much incompetence for one day and was now distracted and not looking at the Green Light, he was fumbling about trying to open the biggest of big chocolate bars. When he did notice the light was green, he pressed the button. Still nothing.

“Can you give the turnstile a bit of a kick lad, it gets a stuck.”

“There you go, you can get in now. See cutting edge technology….”

PROGRESS but as Spock would say ITS PROGRESS BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT JIM.