“You said: Catherine”

I wasn’t sure how to title my blog today – i’m feeling relatively optmistic and my mind, despite being as cluttered as a box of radishes, is leaning on a positive note, having spent the day writing Blakes 7, doodling in my diary, talking to Lauren and chasing plans for the future, as well as re-watching some old doctor who (a review of which might be getting shelved for a future project). In the last few moments tho i have been struck by two incidents of genuine amusement.

The first was referring to my bag of roast potatoes as produced by Granny Basket (instead of Harvest Basket), which made me laugh out loud. More importantly, though, was during an Alexa-enabled knowledge game about Star Wars. I like to think i know a fair bit about Star Wars, so i’d be annoyed if this game truly flunked me.

Question one: how many spires on the tower of the Jedi Council? I MEAN WHAT. ERMMMMM I stammered, six? The answer was five; i can live with being one out. Question 2: how old was Padme when she became queen. I said 13, the answer was 14. Again, i can handle that. Both were, in my defence, guesses, although educated.

But then came this delicious morsel; “on what planet did Darth Vader grow up?” Immediately seeing through the obvious mislead – as Darth Vader was of course Anakin Skywalker – i shouted “Tatooine!” at my Echo, confident to the per cent of 100.

Alexa chose to reply, “You said Catherine. That is incorrect. The answer is Tatooine.”

Staring incredulously at the device i then listened as it informed me i had answered 3 incorrect corrections in a row, scored zero points, and that it was “game over.” I was then treated by an audio putdown, as Sebulba told me i’m bantha poodoo.

Deciding not to take said Dug’s insult to heart, i smashed the Echo dot into small pieces using a cricket bat, told Alexa to go ‘f**k herself’ and made a bacon sandwich, whilst opening my Amazon app to order another Echo. I then sat down and wrote a review of Top Gun: Maverick, which will appear on here fairly soon.

Right now, though, i have important things to do. Like a 4000 word essay on breaking free of self doubt. The importance of which could be astronomical. But i’ll leave that part mysterious for now.

Forth Eorlinghas, readers.