"Technological determinism" is an IT industry term which describes the unfortunate tendency of both individuals and businesses to buy the latest technology just because it's the latest. One of our clients has been indulging in it recently, much to our chagrin. The conversation between our IT department representative and the client's CIO went something like this:

Department rep: Right... now, how much of your IT budget this year will be spent on hiring more technical staff for our department?

Client: Uh... what?

Department rep: Well, we only ask because our existing chaps are overstretched since you stopped replacing department leavers.

Client: Ah, I see. Er... actually, we're not going to spend any money on new people.

Department rep: Sorry?

Client: We're investing in improved technology. It's more cost-efficient.

Department rep: [stunned silence]

Client: We're going to buy 300 of the new ZingTastic X7 HyperBladeZoomyFast servers.

Department rep: No!

Client: Yes.

Department rep: But they're 19 grand each!

Client: Yes. Money well spent, we feel.

Department rep: But why?? You could double the size of your IT support team for that kind of money.

Client: It's the latest technology.

Department rep: So? Why does that make it a good idea to spend 6 million quid on it?

Client: [slowly, as if explaining to a two year-old] Because... it's the latest technology. They have Speedium VIII processors, you know. Ten of them. More is better.

Department rep: Oooo-kaaay... so what kind of percentage improvement are you expecting in system performance?

Client: [perplexed expression] Listen. The boxes are shiny. They have these cool flashing lights. Look, we have pictures. [fishes in briefcase for hardware brochure]

Department rep: [slopes off to find handy shotgun]

This is the sort of woolly thinking we have to put up with. Ponder upon it the next time you feel the urge to go out and buy a 120GB HD/DVD recorder with twin digital tuners.

Incidentally, lemmings don't jump off cliffs or indeed any other landscape features, except possibly to escape predators. It's a persistent myth, created by a Disney film crew making a wildlife documentary in 1958 because apparently they had nothing better to do. This renders the lemming somewhat useless as a metaphor for brainless information tech consumers following the herd to their financial ruin, but I will use it anyway, because I want to.

Kids are great, aren't they? Delightful little cherubs, yes? I was entertaining four of them yesterday, namely my own two plus a couple belonging to one of The Missus' friends. I was doing quite well, I thought. I was wearing a cowboy hat and a red clown nose, and saying things like "Stick 'em up, you naughty bank robbers" in an exaggeratedly Waynesque manner, which is apparently comedy gold to most small children. I was rather taken aback when one of the visiting squibs (the enormous two-and-a-half year old with the head shaped like a watermelon, who had spent most of the afternoon snatching toys off the other little'uns and defacing our walls with an orange crayon) wittily riposted by calling me a ratfarter. "Ratfarter!" he yelled, leaping up and down on a toy sheep, which could only squeak pathetically in its defence. "Ratfarter! Ratfarter!" he shouted as he capered across the room, scattering Sticklebricks and bits of wooden jigsaw in his wake.

What the hell is a ratfarter? Should I worry unduly about being one? Are there clinics?

His mum was mortified, of course, and whisked the offending munchkin off to the Naughty Step to give him a stern lecture, which of course led to five minutes of squalling hysteria at eardrum-buggering volume. I restrained myself from pointing out that my children don't use rude words, and my children don't throw pieces of Victoria sponge cake at other people's televisions when they're feeling harassed. (Although I did enjoy cleaning the cake off the television, because it had raspberry jam in it and I really like raspberry jam.) The young miscreant was eventually bundled into the parental car, still complaining loudly, and made to listen to calming nursery rhymes for ten minutes, which was probably a breach of the Geneva Convention, but fully justified under the circumstances. No doubt he will get used to such confinement later in life, as I foresee a bright and shining career for him in the vandalism and petty theft industries.

What has the world come to when an innocent adult can brutally be called a ratfarter in his own home?

Tsk, tsk. Sigh. Young people today have no respect.