We have to stop the gadget menace now, before it's too late. This iPod thing is not a fad. It's not a craze. It's an arms race, and it's going to end badly. He pulls out a Shuffle. You pull out a nano. He pulls out a nano. You pull out a PSP. He nicks the lot. You miss your bus stop and are fifteen minutes late for work.
It's a cliché among right-wing libertarian types that an armed society is a polite society -- a phrase credited to science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein. Nothing could be further from the truth. We now arm ourselves to the teeth in public to protect ourselves from being slightly bored. All we've got is ruder.
Our buses, our trains, our underground carriages have become a battleground. Public space is no longer shared, it's annexed -- using state-of-the-art personal tech weapons. And it's easy to get sucked in. The acned youth beside you plays Vivaldi's Four Seasons one too many times. You see an MP3 player in a shop window. You take the law into your own hands. A few days later you're on the Tube playing Sonic Youth on a ghetto blaster so loud you pass a kidney stone.
It's mutually assured destruction, an aggression escalation, a war of trumps. You drive a normal car but you're intimidated by all the people in four-wheel drives with Kevlar roll-bars. You have a few drinks and order a Land Rover Discovery online. Pretty soon you're driving a Hummer with a hood-mounted Hellfire anti-tank missile system.
And we're not just talking about MP3 players. There's lots of hardware out there. I've been seeing how much concealed tech heat I can pack on public transport. I've been able to add a new piece a day. For a week. I don't carry a bag, or wear special clothing -- most of this stuff fits in my coat pockets.
This morning I was armed with a Treo 650 Palm OS smart phone in a belt-holster, an MSI Megaview M588 portable video player, a 60GB iPod, a Sony PSP in a shatter-proof case and a pair of Senheisser PX200 earphones. I've even got a battery-powered Boosteroo three-way headphone volume booster, in case I need more power -- fast. I'm totally wired, yet I'm standing beside you on the Northern Line, holding the Metro, looking completely normal.
All of these devices can be purchased legally on a high street near you -- without permits, licences or 24-hour cooling-off periods. Each can do a lot of damage in the wrong hands. They all ensure that I travel in comfort -- but condemn you to an incredibly annoying medley of indistinct bass and hissy treble, as well as irritating giggles when I'm watching old episodes of The Simpsons.
I'm not alone. There's an increasingly ostentatious display of tech weapons on display in public these days. A sinister bulge from a concealed mobile phone, a jacket hanging oddly from the heavy weight of a PDA, cruel silver Samsonite briefcases containing God-knows-what computing firepower.
And people are getting bolder. They boot up their laptops on the bus. They discuss PowerPoint presentations on the train. They fiddle fiddle fiddle with their wretched mobile phones -- which are deadly in the wrong hands and can go off at any time.
It has to stop. Government legislation is the only answer. We need new laws. The tech nuts will tell you, "People kill time, not MP3 players," but that's sheer sophistry. People made this problem and people can solve it.
I suggest we start by focusing on the extreme cases. We send the police into Tottenham Court Road to take out the source: the dealers. They can't possibly justify what they do. Nobody needs a 60GB iPod "to protect my music". Nobody actually spends £2,000 on an Alienware PC "for gaming purposes".
Then we go for the general public. We ration the Shuffle. We set up treatment programmes for the poor suckers hooked on iTunes. We keep gaming handhelds in locked cabinets at home, where they belong. There's still time to put the genie back in the bottle. In the meantime, if you need a something shiny for Saturday night, check out the rest of CNET.co.uk. Say Michael sent you.
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