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Have just received spam from the The Conran Shop offering me << La première tasse intelligente au monde .>>

Obviously, I was eager to learn how its intelligence was made manifest and how it might enhance our lives. Perhaps it would be able calculate the exact metric length of duck sausage needed to make forty-two boulettes de canard for seven people this Thursday (I’m guessing one metre), or perhaps it was a more cerebral mug that could discuss the novels of Eleanor Ferrante with a poor woman whose husband has too many books, but seldom reads fiction?

Perhaps in retrospect I was aiming a little too high, nevertheless, imagine the disappointment on learning that the ‘intelligence’ of this mug (an apt word in the circumstance) consists of being able to keep a drink warm for up to an hour and a half! And even if that counts as ‘intelligence’ (which it might well do these days) who takes an hour and a half to drink something? And lastly, even if there is somewhere on the planet, someone who does take an hour and a half to drink something, is their need likely to so pressing that they’ll be willing to fork out the necessary 115.00 €?

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ISTR Rishi Sunak was photographed with a similar item on his desk.

Makes 115€ seem a bargain, but I don’t think such a sum would even register on Sunak’s radar.

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The idea of imbuing ‘intelligence’ in objects is very over rated - ask the Syrian Cybernetics corporation. :wink:

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I would but have this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.

Though maybe we should ask some of the lifts to stand for parliament? :slight_smile:

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Reminds me of Rhod Gilbert’s famous ‘toothbrush’ routine… ‘up to now I’ve been managing with a separate toothbrush and laptop!’

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Maybe I’d rather just plug Marvin into Parliament.

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'So the Conran Shop’s mug isn’t actually ‘la première tasse intelligent au monde’ unless of course Sunak’s wife picked his up at some off-planet branch of Harrods.

However I like the way The Guardian plays with the metonymical association generated by juxtaposing Sunak with his drinking vessel and the words ‘smart’ and ‘mug’ while resisting the obvious temptation to actually trigger the association in print (The Sun wouldn’t have been able to resist it).

Also the Osborne allusion inverts the association by implying that the staged photo wasn’t a very smart thing to do. To which I’d add that neither is it a very smart thing to do to keep a tall vessel full of liquid (at any temperature) so close to your laptop’s keyboard.

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Does Sir mean the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?

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I think he did. You beat me to the correction.

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I love Elena Ferrante and thank signora Wilson (my Italian teacher at school, proper Italian married to Scottish mr Wilson) from the bottom of my heart for not having to wait for a translation :blush:

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I don’t even read the covers, I just hear about the books. Thought I’d done well distinguishing Ferrante from Ferranti (long established English defence engineering contractors).

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