Political Commentary By JANUS
Page 37
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The Jitterbug
LL my friends would have had from me this Christmas, if I had heard about it in time, a device that seems to fulfil all the requirements of the ideal present, being both instructive and amusing, and thus in line with the invariably unfounded boast of the manufacturers of toy games, but with no suggestion of the utilitarian taint that prompts the response: "It is just what I wanted "—fatal alike to friendship and the Christmas spirit.
My universal gift would have consisted of 12 recorders mounted in a metal case and sealed in fluid. Its speciality is to record variations of movement. An organization known as the Printing, Packaging and Allied Trades Research Association thought up the device three or four years ago, and has since been getting a good deal of quiet fun out of hiding one in a package or crate consigned by road or rail, and checking the record at the end of the journey. Usually the test case also contained glass dishes, which must have enriched the entertainment considerably.
The "automatic. brain," as one report describes it, makes a note of everything that happens to the package in transit. Careless handlers may drop the package, turn it upside down, shake it from side to side, or pick it up and throttle it. No movement is too trivial, no treatment too brutal, for the recorders. Bloody but unbowed, they are lifted reverently from their container in due course by somebody called by my informant "the scientist," who is then in a position, after making the necessary calculations and no doubt within a 10 per cent. margin of error, to say whether or not the glass. dishes are smashed. I suppose it would be cheating to take a look at the dishes first.
Perhaps with tongue in cheek, the research association announces some remarkable discoveries following the use of the recorders. For example, it is said that cases sent by rail get much rougher treatment and are dropped more frequently than those sent by road. "An official," entering into the spirit of the thing, solemnly explains that "the road journey is from door to door, whereas rail transport frequently involves handling of cases at transfer points."
Strains and Stresses To my mind, the device that can inspire such flights of fancy is the one and only Jitterbug. Like Falstaff, it is not only witty but the cause that wit is in others. It is almost human, subject to the strains and stresses that afflict us all. On several occasions it showed undeniable signs of travel sickness. Cases and packages sent by rail, says my report, "appeared to travel indiscriminately on top, bottom and sides." How often the weak-stomached among us have felt they were doing just this on a long train journey.
It is time for the Jitterbug to be introduced to a wider and more sophisticated public than cardboard boxes and old crates. Let the scientists invent a parcel that cries Ouch! every time somebody kicks it, and we will queue up for the demonstration. Too much time and affection is lavished upon inanimate luggage. We have all had the depressing experience at a main-line station of seeing what little regard porters have for the human race. Their eyes are all on the trunk and not its owner. At times the temptation is almost irresistible to cry: "Let the bag look after itself, and carry me for a change."
Transport Man has none of the privileges of the parcel. He may, if he pleases, label himself Fragile or This Side Up, but any notice taken of such announcements would not be kind. He is not graded according to size, weight or displacement. He has to find his own way, and cannot lay the blame on anybody else if he fails to turn up at the right place.
He would benefit most from the gift of a Jitterbug. On crowded journeys twice a day by bus, coach, train or tube, it would become his other self, a dumb friend suffering in sympathy with him and feeling every jar. Each time he was pushed, pummelled, kicked and trampled on, it would record the event, and he would perhaps have the consolation of finding, when he examined its report at home, that he had broken his neck in three places.
Unseen Presence It is as well not to take the Jitterbug too seriously. One hopes it will not find its way into official hands, or become part of the standard equipment of every parcel and every passenger. Last week televiewers were appalled by a dramatic version of George Orwell's vision of 30 years hence, when the interior of the ordinary man's home is shown on a screen to the official spies, thernselves invisible. The unseen presence of the Jitterbug could become almost as tiresome.
The purpose of the research association's experiments is not entirely clear. The manufacturer whose goods are mishandled when sent by a particular form of transport, or by a certain carrier over a certain route, soon decides to go elsewhere. His judgment is guided by the state of the goods when they arrive, and if there has been any damage he will make a claim upon the carrier. He would be thought eccentric if he based his claim upon the punch-drunk condition of a Jitterbug recorder.
There is something to be said for having details of the extent to which various classes of goods are destroyed or damaged in transit. Most carriers are 'Understandably reticent on this point. The British Transport Commission's accounts for 1953 include a figure of £2,224,468 as compensation for damage or loss of goods, property, etc., on British Railways. This is not strictly comparable with the figure of £1,575,663 for compensation and insurances paid by British Road Services for vehicle accidents and goods in transit, and there are no statistics at all in respect of the independent haulier. They are unlikely to be collected reliably by such a device as the Jitterbug.
The gifts I would have made had opportunity offered would be intended for lighter occasions and in no way as a check upon Christmas behaviour. The Jitterbug might be fitted to a guest at a party playing Hunt the Slipper or Blind Man's Buff, but possibly not during a game of Postman's Knock. On the Big Dipper or the Helter-Skelter an intrepid performer might like to discover whether he or the Jitterbug passes out first, but who would wish to record the off-duty moments of the daring young man on the flying trapeze?