How To Be an Eco-Nazi

This is a typical text conversation between your columnist and his daughter. ME: “Feghi suite hart. Did you findelhok moot nug?” HER: “Hi Dad. What’s findelhok moot nug?” ME: “What are u taking about?” HER: “You texted me about findelhok moot nug. I don’t know what this is.” ME: “I didn’t mean findelhok moot nug. Thats my productive tux pogrom changing my warts.” HER: “Oh, I get it. What did you mean?” ME: “I just wilted to nose if you glewrumnop zididy?” HER: “Dad. Stop doing text messages. You’re TOO OLD. Just call me.”

OK, I admit it. I’m too old. I spent 20 minutes on the predictive text function of my phone and got absolutely nowhere. And all I was trying to do was turn it off. I wish people who invent these things would realise that if a guy taps out the letters D, E, A and R, he is probably trying to write the word “dear”. But NO. The predictive text people jump to the conclusion that I am writing the word “feghi”.

At lunchtime I am complaining loudly about this at a small café called the Quite Good Noodle Shop. “I mean, how many communications of any kind in the history of the world have started with the word ‘feghi’?” I ask. Ignoring the fact that this is CLEARLY a rhetorical question, my friend Benny gives me an answer. “Probably a great many,” he says. “Feghi is a common first name for boys in small towns in southern Egypt.”

I respond that it is morally wrong and should be illegal for someone in Asia to have so much arcane knowledge about stuff on the other side of the world. And besides, even if feghi was the most common way to start text messages in southern Egypt (which I seriously doubt, as I expect he simply made up this factoid to annoy me), why should it be programmed into my mobile phone purchased in a city ten thousand kilometres away?

His answer is typically glib: “Actually, it’s only about eight thousand kilometres away.”

Which leads me to an important question. Why is there so much emphasis in society today on the importance of being clever? Surely most clever people are incredibly annoying? The following day, I discovered that school bosses seem to agree with me, because they have dramatically altered the curriculum. In my day, we went to school to learn maths, English, science, etc. Today, the top subject for my children is: “How to be an Eco-Nazi: A Beginner’s Guide.”

That evening, I strolled from my room into the living room only to hear my older daughter bark at me. “DAD. You didn’t switch off the light. We’re trying to, like, save the world here, if you don’t mind?” This is my daughter who was at that precise moment watching the computer with one eye, her Nintendo DS with another eye, the TV with some sort of invisible third eye, while fiddling with her iPod with one hand and scratching the dog with the other. This child alone consumes 40 percent of the entire output of the Asian electricity grid. When she goes to bed, network engineers close down a couple of power stations and breathe a sigh of relief.

But of course I did not point out the irony to her. Criticising your child is Bad Parenting. I read it in a magazine. They lose their self-esteem and become drug addicts, and it’s all the parents’ fault.

So I go back to my room and turn off the light.

Actually, I’ll tell you another reason why I am so nice to her. She’s the only one who will be able to turn off the predictive text function on my mobile phone. Most gadgets these days are designed to be adult-proof, or perhaps just me-proof. If I upset her and she refuses to do that for me, I will be left with only one course of action. Move to Egypt and adopt a boy named Feghi.