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quantum leap...
whatever
that is
RECENTLY this correspondent was involved in a heated debate concerning the best movie of all time.
The Godfather had its supporters along with Citizen Kane. Not surprisingly we threw our weight behind the 1978 masterpiece Escape from Gilligan's Island.
As is oft the case with these things, there were no winners and no losers. By the end of the discourse The Godfather was still favoured by those who originally thought it was the best there's been, while Citizen Kane's followers were equally unmoved.
And this correspondent continued to vote for Escape from Gilligan's Island.
"Who produced The Godfather?" one debater thundered during a particularly fierce exchange.
There was silence. Then this humble reporter came to the rescue.
We googled the answer. On our new iPhone.
"Francis Ford Coppolla," we answered.
"Marlon Brando was the star, it was released in 1972," we continued with sudden air of cinematic authority.
"Incidentally, Orson Welles produced and co-wrote Citizen Kane, way back in 1941," we added after googling the details.
"And of course, Bob Denver starred as Gilligan, with Leslie H Martinson the director. But everyone knows that."
It has been a battle but we're finally starting to come to terms with our new iPhone. Now turning on a light switch still causes us some problems. So working an iPhone is a quantum leap, whatever that is.
We finally decided to join the 21st century earlier this month not long after attaining the lofty status of senior citizen by purchasing an iPhone, at great personal expense we might add.
Until then we'd always made by with cheap mobile phones, which generally did the trick. However, the tragic demise of our last mobile inspired us to upgrade.
Now not for one moment are we saying it was a smooth transition. It took us nearly a week to work out how to answer a call and apologies to the three people who rang us in that time. We will eventually get back to you.
But one of the multitude of joys with colleagues aged under 25 is being able to tap into their vast knowledge of matters technical. That and counting how many times they can use the word 'awesome' in the one sentence, but that's another story.
The days since have been fascinating. We've learnt what apps are.
Well, that's not strictly correct. Our young colleagues have done their best to explain to us what apps are without much success.
It's perhaps good that they encounter failure at a relatively early age. It'll put a bit of steel in their backbones and prepare them for the future.
Just the other day we interviewed no-one less than Troy Bayliss using the voice memo on our iPhone. We'd call it a tape recorder in the old days, but that was sooo 1980s.
Troy, as ever, was understanding after we told him it was our first, and therefore, experimental run.
"Give us a call if it doesn't work out," he said.
As luck would have it we negotiated the interview without too many problems with the result featuring on the back page of this newspaper last Wednesday. It's a marvellous world we live in.
This all culminated in our triumphant googling of movie details last week.
Not that it really helped settle the debate.
But let's face it, anyone who thinks The Godfather or Citizen Kane are superior movies than Escape from Gilligan's Island really don't know what they're talking about.
The philistines.