Susan Morrison: Mrs Map points me towards the future

Who would have thought that missile guidance systems would one day stop this columnist from getting lost on her way to visit a pal?

Off to visit my pal Debbie at home. This is very exciting. I don’t often get invited to people’s houses as I tend to break things. In addition, I’ve never been to Debbie’s house. I will require directions.

Now, I get lost on the way to my kitchen. Whenever I travel to some exotic destination on business – Leeds, for example – my husband used to write down the route. He knows that I am under the impression that the end of my journey will not be a rainbow, but a huge hand pointing from the clouds to my destination with the words “Here, Susan” written on the cuff, a la Monty Python.

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So hurrah for Google Maps. For those who haven’t yet made the acquaintance of this handy doodah, it’s on the mobile phone thing. Maps on phones! Yes, I know! We truly live in the future.

Mind you, I can’t actually read a map. No problem. There’s a lady inside the phone who tells me when to turn corners and stuff. She’s a bit bossy, don’t mind telling you, and she was fairly unsympathetic in Newcastle when she told me to turn left and I did and I walked into a postbox.

So I boldly ventured forth, only to discover after about ten minutes that I had forgotten my phone and thus left helpful voice at home.

No map. I was, my friends, cast adrift on a foreign shore – well, Ferry Road, to be exact – forced to use an older method of navigation. My mother describes it as “having a good Scots tongue in yer heid”. Yup, I walked up to a bus stop and asked directions.

Naturally I asked the oldest lady there, on the grounds that she looked sensible and she would know the lay of the land. She did not disappoint. However, I had forgotten that in the asking of directions, not only directions are given.

It was next on the right, second on the left, and straight ahead.

In addition, her daughter is very well, after that wee virus thing she came down with just before the Bells, so they had a quiet New Year, and here now her youngest has come down with it, always the way of it, so gran was heading down to sort out soup and laundry.

The bossy bissom in the phone has never updated me on her family situation.

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This map thing truly is marvel, though. Satellites whizzing about the planet can find you and tell you where you were/are/want to go. They were originally designed to guide intercontinental ballistic missiles into downtown Vladivostok at the height of the Cold War, apparently.

Who would have thought that the need for pinpoint accuracy in a thermonuclear warhead would eventually lead to my phone telling me that at the next roundabout I should take the first exit on to the A6120?

Party boy’s words of wisdom just the ticket on bus trip

He bounded on to the bus full of bonhomie and joi de vivre. He was a Buckfast bon vivuer with a Special Brew smile. He wished all aboard a happy new year and assured us we’d all have a great 2010, which is when I suspect he got his party started.

He flung himself into his seat like a banker in the back of a Bentley. He sat directly under an advertisement from the NHS assuring people that bladder weakness was nothing to be embarrassed about. Judging from the irregular concentric lines staining the front of his trousers, like a meteorological map of low depression, it was an assurance our party boy didn’t need.

He immediately began a lively conversation with the person to his right. They both supported football teams, had enjoyed Christmas and shopped in the Tesco at the bottom of the Walk. All this was indeed cause for celebration. They were both called Andrew. This was marvellous. And fairly unsurprising, too, since there was no-one to his right, but gosh, reflections can certainly fool you on occasion.

He bade farewell to his new pal, and stood up to leave the bus. He turned and addressed the lower deck with the air of a Churchill. “Remember,” he said, “there are two things in life you don’t want to do. Dae yersel’ in, or eat a gherkin.”

Wise life advice there, I’m sure we’ll all agree.

It’s not a bard way to spend an evening . .

Gosh, jings, tinsel down, haggis out – Burns Night is thundering down the line at us. Don’t get caught out. A few tickets are still available for the Leith Festival Burns Night at the Dockers Club on January 26. The soup alone is worth the admission and the craic is top drawer – and they don’t serve gherkins. It’s the Burns Night Burns would have gone to. Look out for posters for details to get your tickets (yes, Ed, blatant plug, but I’ve still got those negatives).