You used to walk into a bank and hand a human a bit of paper. They understood what it was. Now the same transaction requires three apps, a password you last knew in 2023, a text code that arrives after the app lockout, a captcha gameshow contest in which you must correctly identify every blurred bicycle and a chatbot that glibly says “I understand your frustration”. Buying a sandwich used to involve money and a person. It now often requires Wi-Fi, a QR code that expired forty-seven seconds ago, two-factor authentication, and a phone perilously lurking at 1% battery while the app decides whether your own face looks sufficiently human enough actually to pass off as you. We used to lose our keys and get locked out. Now we get locked out of our own phone if we lose a password or it doesn’t even recognise our own face. You used to get lost and ask a stranger. Now you stare at a blue dot until the signal dies and realise you have no idea which way is north and the the satellite navigation map would like to know your precise location forever in exchange for the privilege of being wrong. Customer service used to be a person. It is now a massive FAQ articulated b a robot who has never seen the product, followed by “was this helpful?”, then a survey about the survey on the standard of customer service. The queue had people in it. The chatbot has a script and an inability to deal with specific questions. We swapped paper maps for phones that need signal, paper tickets for apps that crash at the barrier and paper books for subscriptions that vanish the moment a company “updates its terms.” Meanwhile, the countryside is being paved with data centres so an algorithm can generate a picture of a cat in a tiny hat and you still get a hosepipe ban because it was sunny for four days despite the data centre guzzling vast resources of water. Friends now socialise primarily through a group chat in which nobody has suggested the pub since March. The elderly require an adult child, a login and an IT degree just to see a doctor. Banks close. GPs go app-only. Parking, menus, council tax, pensions and the electricity bill all demand another code, another verification, another proof that you are not a robot trying to pay for your own heating bill. We are less free, more tracked, constantly interrupted and still late because the parking app crashed because of poor wifi signal in the street. But at least we correctly identified the online traffic lights in a captcha grid to prove we are human. Progress. Apparently.

So now that FIFA has opened up a can of worms by enabling USA’s Folarin Balogun to play against Belgium after opting not to enforce an immediate suspension, will they now do the same for England’s Jarell Quansah so he can play against Norway?

Well done to cricketing legend Sir Ian Botham who has launched a campaign against huge wind turbines wrecking some of the most beautiful landscapes in England.