I think it's 'dumbing down' as is happeneing in so many other areas. I use the internet but I am very wary of high technology. Call me paranoid if you like (lots of people do - I know all about them .) The government don't want a populace of people who can think for and take care of themselves: they want a populace of consumers - the stupider the better, and they know that in a few years time civil disorder and environmental catastrophe will be the dominant features of society. The surveillance and policing of this society is already being put into place. Use your loaf - what do you really think our lives will be like in ten years time? It's scary to think about isn't it? I feel strongly about the issue of biometric id schemes and surveillance generally, and I think the push for it from governments and big corporations is part of the preparations for the civil controls which will become necessary if we don't sort out our energy problems - and it don't look like we are gonna do that do it? Problems like food shortages and breakdowns of local government - here not in Africa. I am not a complete pessimist. I have two kids and I dearly hope that my worst fears are wrong. If we continue our short term consumerist culture (which mobile phones play a big part in), and we continue to go along with government's and corporation's lie about sustainable economic growth then the future is truly bleak. Hope for the future lies with the movements against these ideas. There are signs that government is waking up to these ideas, but of course they are in thrall to the real rulers of the world - the corporations.

I think one option for the government, after their biometric id plans have finally unravelled, is to combine mobile phone technology with their id plans, so your phone is your id card. People think I'm strange for not carrying a mobile phone, but everywhere I look I can see people talking to people who are not there. Society is fragmented. Mobile phones fragment society. Divided and conquered. The only hope for us is if we reject (disposable) mobile phones and the other wasteful polluting and soporific trappings of globalisation, and 'sustainable' economic growth and start talking to each other about our world at a local level and how we want it to be,and taking action to make it like that, using low cost, low tech local solutions.

I know I'm rambling a bit but I hope this makes sense. I'm not just railing about it because I'm a member of the Awkward Squad (I am a fully paid - up member). To me it goes against everything that fell racing is about. I escape these worries when I run and race. I don't want to live my life in complete safety; part of the allure of the fells is that they are potentially dangerous - beauty and danger often go together. How many of us would go there if they were completely safe?