.. plumbing and television, but maybe this New Year it’s time for a revision of my list. As I was driving back to Curtin from Fyshwick last Thursday evening, having successfully bought some deck oil as instructed from the Fyshwick Bunnings, I was thinking about how much easier it is to get around Canberra these days with the aid of Google Maps, which was when I thought I should perhaps add GPS to my list of outstanding modern inventions.
If you know Canberra at all you’ll know what I mean. Maria knows it very well, having been brought up there, but being reared on traditional grid layouts I find it quite hard to get a grip on the damned circularity of the place and I’ve often got lost trying to get somewhere only minutes away as the crow flies.
It’s not helped by the semi-rural uniformity of the streetscapes. The roads, circuits and crescents wind through the suburbs where trees abound to the point that you feel you’re trapped in some endless suburban forest. Every now and then you catch a tantalising glimpse of the city of Oz, but after zooming hopefully down the third or fourth parallel circuit you find yourself feeling immeasurably tired and you lose the will to stay awake.
It was about then that I noticed my Google girl was taking me a slightly different way to Curtin. ‘Oh well, this could save me a few minutes in future’ I thought.
‘OK, down Adelaide Ave, past Yarralumla, I know this way’.
‘Take the Cotter Road exit’ my spirit guide told me unexpectedly and I had to make a late lunge to the left, alarming the guy in the red car behind me who was taking a sensible inside line for the exit.
‘This is different’ I thought. ‘I wonder where this is taking me?’
Just then a savage willy-willy gusted dead leaves and dust at the windscreen and the biscuit tin wobbled over the road and I actually thought of the twister in the Wizard of Oz.
‘In four hundred metres turn left at the McCullough St exit’ the manicured English accent insisted. (I don’t know why I didn’t get the Aussie girl). I thought I remembered that street name so did what I was told, but I was becoming a little suspicious.
The wind was gaining in ferocity, presaging a change from the oppressive afternoon heat and debris was blowing in all directions, adding to the confusion.
‘Turn right at Reynolds Street’ I was instructed, which I did although I was almost certain I was being misled.
‘Turn right at Propsting Street’ followed quickly by ‘do a U-turn’ and ‘turn right’ ‘turn left’ confirmed my suspicions and once I rediscovered McCullough Street I stuck with it, despite coaxing to the contrary from my clearly addled assistant, until I finally came across a roundabout (another Canberra favourite) that I recognised and found my way home in a matter of minutes.
I’m not sure what it was. In this case perhaps the local weather conditions played a part in the failure of the guidance system, but I’m sure we’re all familiar with the odd inexplicable Google fuck-up. Not enough to totally abandon it, of course - the Melways or giant road maps are too cumbersome to return to now – but we all have learned to treat Google Maps with a healthy scepticism by now.

Perhaps it wasn’t an Irish girl. Insert the un-PC race/gender slur of your choice. Anyway, he, she or it was asked what they thought was the greatest invention of our times.
After a moment or two’s consideration came the reply. ‘I think the thermos is the greatest invention’.
‘Why?’
‘Well, it keeps things hot and it keeps things cold.’
‘So…?’
‘Well, how does it know?’

* The rather beautiful Cyrillic alphabet has stifado as something that can't be reproduced here unfortunately