The Know-All: Mobile information

I know everything.

There is nowhere I don't know. I am walking, talking information, a mobile information office. My Mastermind subject is the location of this or that. I shouldn't have to be. There are other forms of mobile information: the mobile phone, the TomTom for example. Or they could be, should be even. When will mobile information really catch on, do you suppose? When will it be unnecessary for everyone to be walking, talking dispensers of information, or not?

There's a petrol station in Puerto Alcúdia. It's the one by the Platja d'Or and Ivory Playa hotels, opposite the Eroski. I can tell you, without the need to refer to anything, assuming you cared, which you almost certainly wouldn't, the names of the roads in the vicinity. See, I know everything. Roses, Roselles, Savines, Vidalba, Oms. Any other road you want to know? Any hotel you want to know? How do I know all this? Because I do, and because I draw maps. Or used to, before maps were googled. There's a good google map of hotels and petrol stations and other places in Alcúdia. One I know about. I need to mention it some time ... to the chico ...

The chico didn't come out to fill the tank. I say fill the tank, no one fills a tank full now because petrol has become so expensive, not even the chico who's meant to fill the tank; the chico who normally comes out, but he didn't. So now I'm in the "shop", I suppose you call it that now. Now that it is a shop. I've partially filled the tank myself. The chico is glaring at a laptop. This is why he has not attended to being the pump-attendant. A red-faced German is by the counter. Red-faced, you guess, because of the sun. The chico recognises me. "Do I know ...?" Stupid question. The Marítimo. The hotel. He, the chico, is looking on the web. He has a piece of paper in front of him. It's the German's. Marítimo.

"Yes, I know where the Marítimo is. A couple of hundred metres. On the right side of the carretera." I felt embarrassed. The Marítimo's a whacking great edifice, just down the road. The chico didn't know. Why should he? He's only the chico at the petrol station. Maybe he lives in the opposite direction. Never goes that way. Two hundred metres towards Playa de Muro. He can't do them in Spanish, give directions, even were he to know. I can. I can do them in German as well. For the red-faced German. But I do them in English, because I'm being lazy. And it's not my job. He understands well enough. The chico seems relieved and serves someone else. And then she, German, starts to wave her arms around. Broken Spanish. Incomprehensible Spanish. She's red-faced. Maybe all Germans are red-faced. Something about "mercados" and a whole load of stuff that sounds like not markets in houses, whatever this is supposed to mean. Or not, because I, and the chico, haven't a clue what she's going on about. There's a supermarket opposite, says I, in Spanish. The chico nods. No, no, not a supermarket. Would she prefer to do this in English or German? Ah yes. She wants the market. Gotcha. In Alcúdia. I have a map. I am walking information, with my own printed cartographic information. The chico seems relieved. He might have said thank you, I think. I only went in to pay for the petrol.

It shouldn't be necessary. It's all there. Easy. On a mobile. But not yet. Some time. Some time in the future, there will be no difficult questions in petrol stations about hotels and markets. We've seen the future, but it's not here - yet. One day, all this will be different. And what I know will be irrelevant. No one will probably know anything in future. Because they won't need to.


After The Event - World Cup Song
Not quite after the event, because the event hasn't taken place, but long after the event of the whole gig about getting an England World Cup song going because the Fab-ster had pooh-poohed the notion of Rooney doing a Barnesy-style rap (about three months after the event), comes ... . Sorry, Nobby, it's crap. Linekers Bars' World Cup song.

The blog is still fully behind Jess Conrad and "Soccer Superstar" and I feel bound to mention - again - George and the Dragons' "Green Fields Of England", which is only marginally better than - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiWEA5fUjUg

"Express yourselves." - "We want goals." We want Jess.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.