Cousin Dave called in for a cup of tea this morning. Whilst we were drinking tea and avoiding work he received a text message from his son. Like everyone of a certain age, Dave struggled with his attempts to send a message back - and we got to thinking of the perils of predictive text. What if they had predictive text back in the days of semaphore - a useful way of saving on arm-power. Or what if the early Morse-code operators had predictive Morse. Imagine the conversation between the sinking Titanic and the Steamship California :
TITANIC : S.O. ...
CALIFORNIA : Sorry!, Sorry For what?
TITANIC : S.O. ...
CALIFORNIA : Sob? What are you sobbing about?
TITANIC : S.O. ....
CALIFORNIA : Oh For Heavens' Sake, SOD OFF then.
And talking of California .... The second part of the Mel Torme recording (see yesterdays' entry) has one of the earliest recordings of his California Suite. I am getting to like this recording more and more. But it is certainly quirky. The California Suite (recorded in 1949 I think) must be one of the earliest examples of product placement in music. One section has a chorus dedicated to the Californian Chamber of Commerce - wonderful stuff.
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