Disappointment curdles into revenge fantasy

Disappointment curdles into revenge fantasy.Maybe that’s how it happened. But I wouldn’t want to rule out the possibility that it was the widescreen telly that drove him mad in the first place – particularly if all that technological foreplay was followed by no climax.I’ve been wanting to kill my computer for the past five days – since an attempt to attach a digital camera cast it into a state of twitching shell-shock. I’ve been wanting to kill the digital camera too, for that matter – since it appeared to induce this nervous crisis in an otherwise stable machine. And I sense that the barely controllable desire to hit both objects with a mallet could quite easily snap outwards.In fact, just like this unfortunate man – who believed he was besieging the corporate headquarters of Philips – I’ve actually tried to visit my impotent rage on those I hold responsible – only to find myself trapped in the cruellest of all modern oxymorons, the telephone help-line. What followed was an excruciating game of pass-the-buck, since the hardware supplier knows full well that you have no way of proving that the fault doesn’t lie in the software and ditto everyone else involved.The fury this induces has a peculiarly modern texture that would have been quite unfamiliar to our predecessors. No doubt our forefathers occasionally cursed the suppliers of defective spades or shoddily made fountain pens. But they would at least have known what had gone wrong and whether it was mendable.

Not so the contemporary consumer – who is utterly dependent on the opaque, magical efficacy of machines.And it doesn’t help that the more advanced the technology the greater the mendacity about its magical ease of use, a rhetoric of anxiety-free performance that only makes your plunge into despair more vertiginous.It’s a bit like skating – wonderfully exhilarating until the ice breaks and you realise, with mounting panic, that you have no idea how to find the hole again, let alone how to haul yourself out if you do. So far, I’ve managed to cling on to my sanity – but if I go down shooting don’t laugh when they explain that it was a camera that did it.t.sutcliffe independent.co.uk
More from Thomas Sutcliffe. Seebald ran a great race to be second in the Arkle Chase yesterday and we certainly can’t be disappointed with that, especially when you see it in the context of the death of Valiramix. Your heart really goes out to AP [McCoy] and Martin [Pipe] and the horse’s stable lass who spent all her time with him and will have been looking forward to yesterday for months only for it to end so sadly. Losing a race is not so terrible, but losing a horse is.Martin and AP will somehow have to pick themselves up and try to carry on with saddling the rest of their runners, and hopefully some winners, over the rest of the meeting. In the opening race today, AP has chosen Classified rather than the horse I own with Robbie Fowler, Samon.

I can understand why, as Classified has plenty of experience, while Samon has run just the once. As we saw in the novice hurdle yesterday, experience counts, with Like-A-Butterfly and Westender, first and second, having both had plenty of racing.It’s going to be tough for Samon ­ Keen Leader is very decent, so is The Bajan Bandit. Most of these horses haven’t faced each other before and there are a lot of ifs and buts. It’s very exciting.I’ll be cheering on AP on Edredon Bleu in the Queen Mother Champion Chase. I don’t think the ground was right for him when he was beaten by Flagship Uberalles.Martin saddles half a dozen in the Coral Cup, including Magnus, who beat Bilboa in France, but AP has gone for Golden Alpha, so that’s good enough for me. In the Royal & SunAlliance Chase I’ve been impressed by Japhet and I can’t see him being beaten by Frosty Canyon again.Steve McManaman plays for Real Madrid, who faced Sparta Prague in the Champions’ League last night.

The portents for this interview are, in truth, not good. First of all, I call a friend who is on intimate terms with the world of horse racing I ask him for the low-down on Richard Johnson. Perfectly nice young man, comes the reply, and a brilliant National Hunt jockey if not quite the real McCoy, but not too much of interest to say for himself. The one interesting thing about him, suggests my chum, is his royal girlfriend, the Queen’s granddaughter, Zara Phillips. Indeed, the current tabloid speculation is that they might soon marry

The portents for this interview are, in truth, not good.