This is boring, very boring. Actors don’t want to act, poets don’t want to write, workers don’t want to work, school children don’t want to go to school and I don’t want to learn any more upgrades. When I read another letter in the design press about young people: “they don’t know the meaning of work they don’t teach them anything at college except how to turn on a computer”. I feel quite upset because I went to art school and I had to pay for it myself (I got to sleep through law lectures courtesy of the welfare state) and I don’t remember anyone showing me how to switch on a computer, in fact I don’t remember anyone even telling me where the computers were kept. That was a well kept secret to keep demand for bandwidth to a manageable level.

When eventually I found myself in front of a Macintosh Plus and clicking on the icon for Freehand version 1.0, I felt like an explorer in outer space. OK, I was surrounded by a dozen other explorers but no one said a word except the computers (quack, quack, oops!). Yes, we were all alone. But imagine the excitement of being able to draw all those squares without that problem with rotring pens where the ink smudges under the ruler. And within weeks I was in Amsterdam being hailed as a Mac guru in a very cool Dutch design company (hello Astrid at UNA) but they didn’t have Freehand, no, they had the serious drawing program, Illustrator ‘88. You could tell it was serious because you couldn’t work on your drawing and see it at the same time. later I discovered that the program was also available with menus in English but, hell, I was at the cutting edge of digital design, I didn’t want the tourist menu; that would be like ordering egg and chips in a curry house.

At the risk of being boring let’s go back even further; in 1978 I got a A grade for my Latin “O” level and I got a “B” for French. I gave up studying both of these languages shortly afterwards and I have never felt happier. I don’t suppose I would have got very good grades for the work I did in Authorware (sorry Lewisham Council) and I was relieved to learn that Infini D was always crap (no wonder I could never tell the difference between the y and the z axis). The best thing that has happened for me recently in the world of graphic design software is the elevation of macromedia director to “serious programming environment”. Yes, no more getting our hands dirty for me and the formula one superstars, we just drive like angels and let the technical guys look after the under-the-bonnet stuff.

I don’t remember writing any poetry in Latin or French, but my Freehand typescale with half point incremented line feed gauge and protractor was a epic only recently rivalled by my two hundred slice Image ready html table. There is some poetry in these cascades of numbers but after a while they just start to wear you down. Point and click, kiss me quick. But, brothers and sisters in arms, don’t give up now! Don’t hand over the new media high ground to the old media high brow; they didn’t understand it then and they don’t understand it now. If you can just raise your heads above the software mire, say something pretty about life, the universe, or anything, do it!