Mighty is the Mouse

The best laid plans of mice and men, and some new shows announced.

Hello Dear Reader

As some of you who are regular readers will know, I’ve been fascinated by AI for some time now. With my hard won C in Maths GCSE (three attempts, friends - God loves a trier) I have zero hope of understanding how it actually works on a computational level. But when I hear the word intelligence in today’s context, it’s like the promise of a tall, cool glass of water to someone who has crawled through the Sahara on all fours while being chased by lions.

I’ve been reading The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil. I vaguely remembered him as the guy behind decent synthesisers back in the day before everything went digital, when one of your correspondent’s favourite past times was to jump on a bus to spend a happy afternoon trying out all the keyboards in all the music shops on or around Denmark Street in London. If I’m honest, I can’t think of a single Kurzweil I dreamt of owning - I was always a Korg or Roland girl - but Ray’s forgiven: in the time it takes us to put the kettle on, he’s probably invented a whole new kind of kettle. Flatbed scanners, reading machines, early AI - Ray’s been a busy boy.

I was thinking about him last night while I was making a cup of tea to take up to bed at the end of a long day. I often think that women take for granted how much of a positive change technology has made to our lives in particular. A hundred years ago, one of my great grandmothers was in service, scrubbing floors and hand-washing a toff’s underwear by gaslight. I might moan at the men in my house to make the connection between floor and laundry basket and that big white machine thing with the round window, but a woman’s life in the past has always been more shit than the present.

So, it goes without saying that I’m a fully paid up member of the future is always better than the present club. Bring on the robots!, I say. If it means I never have to have an opinion on fabric conditioner or limescale removers ever again, bring that singularity the fuck on, and quickly.

I fear though, that far from being around the corner, or as revolutionary as I pray it could be, we are some time away from this brave new world. And I’m not convinced that all the genius of Palo Alto and Cupertino combined has factored in what I consider to be the single biggest threat to the advancement of mankind.

Mice.

It will be mice that fuck everything up, I’m absolutely sure of it.

If not mice, then squirrels. Rodents of some kind will definitely be involved.

I say this, because a week ago, our dishwasher started leaking water at an alarming rate. Upon investigation, we discovered that a creature of some kind had chewed through the waste water pipe. It was nothing less than impressive.

‘Well you’re useless’, I said to the cats. ‘That’s it. You’re all on a diet until you’ve earned your keep.’ (This lasted all of five minutes. If you’ve got a cat, you know exactly what I mean when I say they gave me that I will kill you while you sleep look.)

For reasons I’ve never understood, the previous owner of our house had two dishwashers installed. We seldom use it, but I like knowing it’s there, like the freeze-dried emergency food I bought one Black Friday and have never touched. When we called our home cover service provider and the only appointment they could offer was some time in 2039, on the first Wednesday after the third quarter moon in Uranus, this second dishwasher dulled the epigenetic dread of domestic drudgery flooding my veins.

Until last night, when just as I was about to go to bed with that cup of tea, I heard the loud sound of water and then realised it was happening all over again. It had taken RoboRodent all of a few hours to destroy a second waste disposal pipe and flood the kitchen.

Call me insane, but I have a grudging respect for small animals’ propensity to cause enormous damage. A few years ago, squirrels moved into our loft one winter and took out all the electrics in the house. Every year we squirrel proof our roof: every year, they find a way back in.

If we want to advance to artificial super intelligence, really we should just get squirrels to design it. It would be indestructible. It would be useless for anything other than advancing the cause of nuts, but it would trundle on for all of eternity. The only AI to rival it would be the one created by mice.

I don’t know when it’s going to arrive or what it’s going to look like, but whenever I hear tech bros jabber on about this great and glorious future, I know the decent thing is to wish for the eradication of poverty and disease, but I’d be quite satisfied with one that doesn’t involve the washing up or putting on duvet covers.

Or one that finally offers a humane way to evict mice.

While I ponder this pressing dilemma, let me share some news.

I’ve been invited by the very nice people (who were behind my Nunnington Hall shows in years gone by) at The Bowes Museum in County Durham to play a couple of extremely intimate solo shows on Friday, March 21st and Saturday, March 22nd. I can’t wait, not least because it’s near Barnard Castle which, if you’re short sighted like I am, means I can check my eyesight if needed.

Shortly before this jaunt to the North East, I shall be returning to the Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine, Scotland to play Freckfest on Saturday March 8th. Tickets go on sale this Friday morning at 10am.

This Friday sees the release of an absolutely gorgeous song, Sunny, by my friend Bright Light Bright Light. I was very happy to do backing vocals along with the very brilliant Beth Hirsch no less.

Finally, it’s just over a fortnight before I head off on tour, and there are a still some tickets available. Some of you have been asking me if I will be signing after these shows - and I’m planning to. I might start cautiously in Bristol (no one wants the bug that wrecked my voice at the Christmas show in 2022) and then go full hugs-and-handshakes by Edinburgh.

That’s all for now.

With love as ever,

Nerina xxx