Barcelona Virtual City

“In 4 kilometres, stay on the left.”
“In 200 metres, join the motorway.”
“In 300 metres, take the 5th exit off the roundabout.”

I was in a taxi coming in from the airport. The recorded Spanish female voice - I have translated its monotone utterances for benefit of readers - droned on and on. It sounded like Telef?nica’s answering service.  Brilliant, I thought. Instead of having to take your eyes off the road, the sat nav gives you spoken instructions.

Except, as I gradually realised, they bore no relation whatsoever to our position on the road.

What motorway? What roundabout?  Pla?a Espanya?  Five exits?  Besides, to get home we take the underpass under the square.  I should have asked the driver why the sat nav appeared to be up the spout but he was one of those taciturn ones, and I didn’t feel much like talking anyway. It must be me, I thought. (a) I had just had the harrowing experience of eating my first ever Burger King meal at Manchester airport because there was nothing else available - at a big international airport, I ask you!  (Actually, a sign said there would be new cafes and restaurants ?coming soon’.)  The food itself tasted okay, but it was so messy and so dreary, eating with my fingers off a plastic tray.  More to the point, (b) I had been reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene and trying to get to grips with the theory of relativity. All that stuff about observers in relative motion.  No wonder I couldn’t figure out where I was or why the sat nav was talking rubbish.  And, after a week in deepest north Manchester, I couldn’t even remember how to say sat nav in Spanish anyway. Or Catalan.

Then today, I got off the bus at the wrong stop - because I was watching the digital screen. I’ve been getting buses up the Diagonal to Francesc Maci? for decades, but was interested to see what street coordinates it gave for the stops. Anyway, the screen tinkled and said next stop Diagonal-Francesc Maci?: my stop. As I the doors opened, the screen changed to Diagonal-Ganduxer, the one after that. But when I was off the bus I completely lost my bearings.  I wasn’t at the right stop.  But… there was the Hotel Presidente… we were at the Diagonal-Muntaner stop, the one before mine.  A long time seemed to elapse before it occurred to me that it was digital screen that was wrong. 

I was slightly stunned. We are so dependent on technology. We don’t expect it to be wrong and we give it greater credence than our own experience.  We forget how to do jurassic things like looking out of the window for landmarks. I wanted to run after the bus shouting: your screen is all wrong! All the passengers will get off at the wrong stops and wander around in a daze! The city is chaotic enough as it is!

Especially when our sat navs are plugged into in a virtual city with roundabouts, motorways and off-ramps in all the wrong places.