Terrier Paté

I don't like dogs. Specifically, they don't like me. They'll always single me out for knocking over (I'm fairly light, so it's not hard), or mauling - so I don't like them. But I'm beginning to like technology even less. My computer took 30 minutes just to load this interview on the Guardian website, partly because Tweetdeck, the desktop app for Twitter, decided to update itself at that exact moment. That's the problem with software that does stuff automatically; it chooses the least opportune moments to annoy you with a bug fix or virus scan. McAfee is constantly stalking me, like a little yapping terrier begging for food, constantly. I won't feed it though. I'll lock it in a broken fridge, then leave it on abandoned wasteland somewhere, for a metal-detector enthusiast to find and uncover the reeking skeleton in about fifty year's time.

If it's not being slow and not telling you, it's being fast (not fast like the Millennium Falcon, fast like a hit-and-run driver) and telling you in a loud voice. Windows, for one, is constantly prompting you to do things. Do you want to save? Fancy switching me off? Do you want the toilet? And unlike the updates, you can't ignore the prompts. The only solution is the big red, lovely X button in the top-right hand corner of all the progams. In dog-violence terms, it's the equivalent of kicking the terrier repeatedly until it's a bloody mess, then smearing it like paté on your ex-girlfriend's car bonnet.

But the most annoying thing about computers? When they get in a tizzy with you, they just nod off - "not responding" is the Windows-term (sorry I'm not mentioning Macs or the other OS's, but I have trusty XP at home and Macs just behave like Nokia mobiles from circa-2007). And when that happens, I see red. Well actually, I see this:

Anyone would get pissed at that kind of disrespect. If this were Compton, I'd have shot the monitor by now. To use the canine reference a third and final time, "not responding" is the real-life manifestation of being slapped with a keyboard by the terrier, having been set free by the RSPCA and sent back through time to take revenge.

Coronation Street, like all other soap-opera dramas, plays on our basest stereotypes to make the characters appeal to a wider audience. The cast of EastEnders is packed with cockney villains, Hollyoaks is filled with cliquey teens and lazy students, and Neighbours has lots of blonde girls and surfer boys who constantly barbeque and never grow up, like 1950's Californian Peter Pans. But as I was watching "Corrie" (not my choice) today, I noticed that about 90% of Sally's (blonde, short haired wife of mechanic Kevin) lines were "Don't you speak to my Kevin like that!". Even when the shopkeeper handed back change, or a customer said "hello" in the garage, Sally would launch a thermonuclear verbal tirade against them, like a nightmarish, squawking jack-in-the-box. Poor old Kevin never actually gets the chance to stick up for himself because Sal's in there first - before scolding him for not beig a real man and fighting his corner. It's no wonder he's having an affair, really.