Gary Lineker nearly melts the BBC, $100 billion is wiped off the value of US banks overnight and Twitter implodes over perceived injustices at the Oscars. Meanwhile, back in Zone 3, I’m worrying about a bizarre — and most unwelcome — new government initiative, to further terrify us via our phones.
The UK is set to test a frightening ‘Armageddon alarm’ on Sunday (April 23), which will see thousands of people’s phones flash uncontrollably, and emit ear-piercing alarms.
The system, which will be trialled nationwide, is designed to warn people if there is a danger to life nearby. What this means is unclear — potential murders, cataclysmic weather events, armed robberies — but here’s the thing: how on earth is getting me involved going to help? I’m terrified of blood, vomit, awkward situations, people who call rather than whatsapp (psychopaths) and, most things really. I don’t have even the most basic medical training. If something awful has happened, honest to god you’re better off without me there. I’m so cowardly that I even deleted the Nextdoor app as all the reports of local crime were making me anxious.
Officials trialled the system in Reading in 2021, sending sirens wailing from mobiles for 10 seconds. One local wrote on BerkshireLive’s Facebook page: “I nearly wet myself!” Well, quite.
The Armageddon alarm is coming to my phone, but I feel like my device is already a 24/7 Armageddon alarm. Work crises, huge, earth-shattering news events, gym classes that I’m not going to make and get fined for, gym classes that I do make and turn me into a hyperventilating splat on the wall, parcels delivered to my house while I was out that have been taken back to the sorting office to die.
The last thing I need to be alerted to is an actual Armageddon. And I mean, these days — wow. For a worrier like me you really are spoilt for choice — we’ve had a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, a recession, the cost-of-living crisis, the war in Ukraine. Now people are talking about bird flu killing us all. There’s a dead bird at the end of my road with its entrails hanging out. I’m probably on my way out as I type.
Labour has been pushing for the system for more than a decade and ministers have been promising to introduce it since 2013.
A Government spokesperson declared recently: “Emergency Alerts will be a vital tool in helping us better respond to emergencies, both nationally and locally.”
We’ve been here before. Do you remember the NHS track and trace app during Covid? It sent endless messages telling us all we had encountered the plague and therefore had to isolate in solitary confinement for a week. What unremitting joy that was.
But what with strikes galore and the world going to hell in a handcart, this new drive truly is the last thing that we Londoners need.
Angela Bassett’s Oscars sulk was priceless
We’ve all been there. You’ve excelled yourself and have been rightfully nominated for some wonderful accolade, promotion or job which, by the way you have worked incredibly hard for, and boy do you deserve it, when this amazing prize is handed to… someone else. Someone who in your eyes is far less deserving. We all know the rules here are that you affix a rictus grin to your mouth and applaud good-naturedly.
My favourite moment of this year’s Oscars by far? The reaction of screen goddess Angela Bassett to being beaten to the Best Supporting Actress gong at the awards night.
Eyes narrowed, pulsating with fury, The Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star looked openly furious as Jamie Lee Curtis stole her prize.
Fellow nominees Hong Chau, Kerry Condon and Stephanie Hsu could be seen applauding as Curtis stood to accept the award. But Bassett allowed her true feelings to show.
And I love her for it.
