All That Gas - And Google: ABTA Convention

Come on, how many of you remember "Space Patrol"? It was a sixties puppet series in which the hero was Captain Larry Dart, a long-haired, bearded explorer-style spaceman who had more than a touch of the Shakespearean about him, in looks if nothing else. When the crew of his gyroscopic craft would land on a distant planet, it tackled the problem of communication by using a translation device that was strapped to the chest. Set appropriately, the translator would simultaneously turn Martian into perfect mid-Atlantic English.

Google's ambitions for space travel or for the need for intergalactic translation machines are unknown. But it is fast putting together a number of aids for the earthly traveller. One of them is Google Translate in voice form, along with a voice search facility.

The appearance of Google at this year's ABTA convention was anticipated with both interest and trepidation. Just what will Google Travel involve? If its convention demo is anything to go by, it still needs a bit of fine-tuning.

As with the regular Google Translate, the results are often far from accurate. Put a simple enough question into the voice version and there's an additional problem - does the system recognise individual words correctly? The demo, in true Larry Dart mode, might have involved asking "wherefore art thou, Romeo?". Instead, the question was "where is the beach?" Unfortunately, this was misheard. Is life a beach or a bitch? A bitch, according to Google Translate, which, on the screen presentation, was sensitive enough to asterisk out the four letters following the "b".

The voice search thing wasn't much better. "How much is two hundred pounds in euros?" No matches were found, a reflection perhaps of two basket-case currencies. It might have worked better the other way round. Indeed, for the visitor to Mallorca, who may well come to rely on such a service via his smartphone, it could be essential when Tráfico pulls him over and issues an on-the-spot fine.

We could all do, though, with a spot of Larry Dart and heading off into outer space. Life on earth is to become ever more intolerable, especially in Britain and Mallorca. Or this is how one might interpret the thoughts of Douglas McWilliams who had predicted the arrival of the economic crisis and to whom is therefore assigned the mantle of economic-forecasting guru, otherwise known as doom merchant.

Everyone will have less money, the days of super-cheap flights are drawing to a close, the pound will remain weak. The only bright spot is that Spain might drop out of the Euro, and we can all get back to things being dirt cheap and to tossing small peseta coins into the rubbish bin because they are more trouble than they are worth. And to make matters worse, there are some who are going to get richer, such as the Australians. All that gas. Australia has it in abundance.

Commodity-rich nations are going to be the winners in the future, which includes the gaseous Russians, arriving in ever greater numbers and converting Brit bars into beetroot and vodka emporia.

If commodity wealth is so important, and it is, then I'm very sorry but some oil platforms off the shores of the Balearics should be put up with immediate effect. Something will have to compensate for no one coming on holiday any longer, other than the Russians. At least with their arrival, we will be able to count on one thing. And that's Google. "Where is the beach?" will be swiftly translated into Russian, along with a further translation for "that beach with the oil slick washing up on it."

Have a happy future, everyone, I'm off on Space Patrol.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.