G&P Awards - Science and Technology

Innovation of the year – iSay! There was much excitement in the offices of G&P when ‘smartphones’ where introduced. This excitement was diminished when one actually started using one. They did not, it appears, automatically mute themselves during Opera. Nor did they automatically ring with an urgent, not to be ignored tone during the interminable second act of ‘De Fingermaus’, allowing one to slip away from the box and test the service at the bar. Worst of all, they did not self-erase browsing history or scramble text messages from annoyed mistresses. What, was the collective opinion, is so f**king smart about that? This all changes with the introduction of ‘apps’, an acronym of A Perfect Procrastination Solution, they are indeed supreme at wasting time. Previously, the staff of G&P thought angry birds were the ones one clipped but did not kill on a shoot, instead it turns out to be either a way for your sullen child to while away that difficult lunch when you tell him he can’t come home from Christmas after all because Daddy’s new wife does not like the way he looks at her in the hot tub, or you to while away the time during any meeting featuring a powerpoint slide with the word ‘vision’ on it. Occasionally though, there is a useful app. Such an app is iSay. iSay is an English translation app. Unlike other translation apps, that spits out tinny mechanised unintelligible versions of ‘can you show me the way to the nearest lavatory that features a Sturley and Armington flush mechanism’ and other phrases that one clearly needs abroad, it turns your phone into a PA system while at same time printing the message, dot matrix style, on the screen. So for instance, if one types in ‘would you mind awfully advising me where the railway station is please?’ it turns it into English Abroad: ‘WHERE. IS. RAILWAY. STATION!’ Now, this is doing nothing one cannot do oneself, but the clever bit is if one is having trouble being understood, one hits ‘repeat’ and gets, in this instance: ‘RAILWAY. STATION.’ ‘CHUFF CHUFF, YOU KNOW, THAT WE BUILT’ ‘Oh for fuck’s sake’. And thence on to the inevitable scuffle, local law enforcement involvement and appearance of British consulate. The G&P staff have used this in Wales and found it most effective.