Self-service machines are speaking to us now
Soothingly; they never argue or shout
Only plodders are using the checkout
The grey-haired nodders with nowhere to go.
At least, they are not in a tearing hurry
Their pace is infuriatingly slow
They fumble with pills, talk to the radio
Stumble to Wetherspoons for a curry.
Today, I am travelling down their road
I ignore the machines that stutter and blip.
Are you collecting your nectar points, sir? No.
Why not? Because I am more than a bar code
You cannot interrogate me from a strip
I feel pain, I walk in sun and shadow.
Note: with a shocking toothache, en route to the dentist, I pop into Sainsbury's in Forest Hill and discover that Blade Runner has arrived – machines are talking to people in Lycra running shorts buying bags of tangerines. I am averse to the self-service thing (I don't know why), so I shuffle behind some elderly coin fiddlers and force myself to smile and not to be impatient, thinking that I am closer in demographic and attitude to them than I am to the treadmill pounders who are shopping a la Ridley Scott. I almost pop into the gloomy, cavernous Wetherspoons over the road, for a pint of bitter subsidisded by the British Association for Decrepitude but, realising that I have to go to work, I stop myself in time.
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