Change is a Curious Thing
A/N: ...and I thought, what if the Dowager was updated slightly to the 21st Century. A oneshot, modern AU from her point of view about technology and change. Let me me know what you think.
"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age." - Sherlock Holmes*
My granddaughters were given iPads last Christmas. They then bought me one. Needless to say that it is still sat in a drawer in the original packaging. I may be old but I have managed to get to basic grips with an ordinary computer and have owned one for quite some time. So I did ask them what they saw in such a device. It is a kind of tablet computer with a touch screen - the user can touch the screen to perform specific actions. They said that it made life easier and information more accessible whilst on the move. For example, Edith told me that she can contact her university friends who are sound as though they are now scattered across the Globe, from Australia to Zimbabwe, and everywhere in between. She can also write her newspaper column whilst on the move and talk to other journalists simultaneously.
Mary tells me that now she has her entire music collection, copies of various photo albums and several best selling novels and some award winning films on her device. As well as her numerous magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Sybil also uses her iPad for books and newspapers. She also has somehow has the ability to transform it into a radio which will receive radio stations from all over the world. Apparently, it's called an "app".
All three girls use these new toys as extensions of their "smart" phones. Well I can tell you that whoever designed such a instrument was most definitely not "smart". Therefore I doubt that their creation is either. These "smart" phones have 2 fatal flaws. Firstly the screen is too small. I tried to use Mary's when she vainly attempted to encourage me to purchase one and I couldn't use the buttons on the touch screen. They were minuscule. I ended up typing nonsense instead of "Downton". My second problem with such a phone is that the screen is much to fragile. I remember Sybil dropping hers and smashing the screen hours after unboxing it. I have used a very hardy Nokia mobile phone for the past 5 years. The machine has never developed a fault and I have all the numbers I want to ever call at a touch of a button. The beauty of "speed dial". One thing I do appreciate about the iPad is the large screen which suits its function quite well. Nevertheless, it is just as fragile.
To be honest, I don't see the point in using the iPad for somethings. Edith needs to contact friends? Edith should have an address book and write down their telephone numbers. If she wants to use technology, email them. She has her own computer. Why have an iPad. As for her journalism, I can't say I approve. Yet if she must write, write it out longhand, don't type it. I find that writing out work by hand gives the writer more of a chance to improve the content.
Mary now has put her entire music collection on her new iPad. Why couldn't she have stuck with the HiFi system I brought her for her birthday several years ago? That played CDs and cassette tapes. I have heard all sorts of stories about music going missing on computers after they were attacked by viruses (a kind of computer disease). All I can say is that she should keep physical copies and not have all her eggs in one basket. The same goes for her photo albums. Mary now also has books and films on her iPad. Why couldn't she bother going to the cinema? It's only in Ripon. I remember when the nearest picture house was in York. As for books, there is nothing like a real book. If it's on her tablet, Mary will have a story but the story won't have any physical effect. You can turn pages or feel paper on a screen. Books even have smells that can't be replicated on screen.
One of the functions I do like is the fact that Sybil can turn her iPad into a radio at the touch of a button. I remember when my late husband and I used to travel abroad and the pains we went to to tune our car radio to the correct frequency to get the BBC World Service for news of home. Sybil will have no such problem, wherever she is.
Another function I like is the fact that Mary and Sybil can get virtual newspapers and magazines delivered to their machines. It means that I no longer have to move the real things off chairs I want to sit on in the Abbey. I did buy them both magazine racks but they didn't solve the problem. I ensure that newsprint is carefully tidied away at the Dower House and I have several racks for such a purpose.
That is not to say that I approve of the loss of newsprint at the Abbey. However it will only be a small one. Most of the magazines Mary has subscriptions for are monthly periodicals along the lines of Vogue and Vanity Fair. Even The Lady is now available weekly on the iPad although Cora and I still take hard copies. For newspapers, Mary has subscriptions to The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. Sybil on the other hand has had a subscription to The Guardian since the age of 15. How very Liberal and middle class. Though she has never cared for The Observer. Both now take their papers virtually. Myself, my children and my daughter-in-law still read physical newspapers. I take The Times and The Sunday Times. I do enjoy the crossword. Robert also takes them as well as The Financial Times. Rosamund has read The Independent since it's inception. Cora takes USA Today and the International New York Times.
Cora is spoilt for choice when in comes to receiving news from America. Since Robert had cable and satellite television installed, Cora has a plethora of American television stations at her disposal as well as "catchup TV". She can also receive American newspapers daily. With her laptop, Cora can video call her mother and brother in Newport, Rhode Island and New York. They are both very American. Harold Levinson is a bit of a playboy - yachts, cars, motorcycles and girls. His fortune was grown on Wall St, adding to the Levinson family fortune. I cannot really describe Martha, however I think that is a good thing that she lives on the other side of the Atlantic, possibly for her own safety, if not my sanity. She has visited Britain twice in the last decade. Harold has visited more often. Cora flies out every year to Newport for Thanksgiving in November, usually taking the rest of the family with her. I on the other hand have no desire to visit, it is far too metropolitan. America is too new. New York is not like London. A better comparative would be Washington DC. New York is all concrete and glass that aspires to dizzying heights. The flight takes about eight hours from London. It's strange to think that Concorde, a British aircraft (the French had some input as well but we don't mention it), could do the same journey in a quarter of the time whilst an American jumbo jet was four times slower. I suppose it is called British ingenuity. Change is a curious thing.
It brings me back to the iPad that is still sat, shrink wrapped in a drawer in the Dower House. What is the point in change? I don't like it. Most of it is for convinience. I think it only encourages laziness.
*His Last Bow, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1917
A/N: Thanks for reading, please review. As regards the quote, I think the Dowager is a bit like that.