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一個(gè)普通英國人一生會(huì)消耗掉多少電器？5臺(tái)冰箱、8臺(tái)烤面包機(jī)、6個(gè)微波爐、7臺(tái)電腦、6臺(tái)電視機(jī)、12個(gè)電水壺……35部手機(jī)！而且這些數(shù)字仍在增長，這個(gè)序列中的電器種類也越來越多。科技產(chǎn)品，因創(chuàng)新而為人追逐，也因創(chuàng)新而遭人擯棄。
By Richard Morrison
李湘廷 選注
As John Updike once sourly but accurately observed, these days we are all conditioned to accept newness, whatever it costs.[1] Very soon, no doubt, Apple’s tablet will seem as an essential tool of modern living to us as the electric trouser-press did to our grandparents.[2] At least, it will until someone manufactures an even smarter, thinner and more essential tablet. Which, if recent history is any guide, will be in approximately six months’ time.
And that’s the bewildering[3] thing, isn’t it? Turn your back for a moment and you find that every electronic item in your possession is as dated as a mildewed tombstone.[4] Which wouldn’t be so bad in itself. Why should you care if people snigger because you use a mobile phone that actually predates Barack Obama’s presidency? [5]
But try getting the thing repaired when it goes wrong. It’s like walking into a pub and asking for a Dubonnet and lemonade.[6] You will be made to feel like some sort of time-traveller from the 1970s. “Don’t you want an upgrade?” you will be asked, incredulously.[7] “It’s not worth repairing that old thing.”
And so the mountain of dumped electrical debris grows.[8] A few years ago a satirically-minded sculptor constructed a gigantic statue made from the exact number of electronic goods that an average British person was estimated to discard in a lifetime.[9] It weighed three tons, stood 7ft high, and included five fridges, eight toasters, six microwaves, seven PCs, six TVs, 12 kettles, seven vacuum cleaners and 35 mobile phones.[10]
Even then, the calculation seemed on the conservative[11] side. Only 35 mobiles? In a lifetime? As every parent knows, any teenager will get through at least five phones each year. One will drown in the pocket of a pair of jeans chucked[12] in the washing machine. One will be lent to a girlfriend who has moved to Ipswich. One will be stolen during PE[13]. One will be left on a bus. And one will be accidentally flushed down the loo of a dodgy club in Camden Town.[14]
The enormous number of electronic items now regularly chucked out by British families is clearly one big problem. But this ceaseless discarding of gadgets has other consequences.[15] It contributes greatly, I think, to the uneasy feeling that modern life is whizzing[16] by faster than we can keep up. By the time I’ve learnt how to use a gadget it’s already broken, lost or redundant[17]. I’ve lost count of the number of TV remote-control thingies that I’ve bought, mislaid and replaced without working out what most of the buttons did.[18]
And the technology changes so bewilderingly fast—not least in the media world. Was it only 30 years ago that I saw my great predecessor William Mann (the music critic of The Times who famously declared the Beatles to be the finest songwriters since Schubert) sitting in the newspaper’s canteen after a concert and writing his review—with a fountain-pen![19] —for that night’s edition? And was it less than years ago that I spotted a high-powered businessman friend towing what seemed to be either a large crate or a small nuclear bomb on wheels through a railway station.[20] “Good grief[21],” I exclaimed. “What have you got in there? Your money or your wife?”
“Neither,” he replied, with the smug look of a man who knows he’s at the cutting-edge[22] of technology, no matter how ridiculous he looks. “This is what everyone will have soon—even you. It’s called a mobile telephone.”
I don’t lament[23] the pace of change. On the contrary, I’m dazzled by those high-tech designers who can somehow fit a camera, music-player, computer, phone and satellite navigation system into a plastic slab no bigger than a packet of fags.[24] Or invent a vacuum cleaner such as the one recently showed to me that can suck fluff straight into a dustbin via a system of pipes in your house walls.[25] (All you have to do is rebuild your entire home.) If the geniuses who dreamt up that could also find a way to keep the Tube[26] running on the first snowy day of winter, they would be making real progress for humanity.
What I do regret, however, is the built-in instant obsolescence[27] of so many household items. My parents bought a wooden wireless[28] in 1947, the year they were married. If 1973, the year I went to university, it was still pumping out[29] Family Favourites and The World at One. It sat in the kitchen like an old friend—which, in a way, it was. It certainly spoke to us more than we spoke to each other on some grumpy[30] mornings.
True, it had idiosyncrasies[31]. You had to know exactly how to tickle its knobs or tweak its dials to conjure discernible speech and music from the crackle.[32] But that was its mystique[33]. When my mum replaced it with a new-style radio that could also play cassette-tapes (gosh, remember them?) I felt a real sense of loss.
Such is the frenetic turnover of 21st-century technology that there’s no time to forge emotional bonds. Even if Apple’s new wonder-toys turn out to be the most significant tablets since the big ones that Moses dragged down the mountain[34], I very much doubt that they will resist the here-today-gone-tomorrow trend.
Vocabulary
1. 厄普代克曾酸溜溜但卻不乏卓識(shí)地講到，現(xiàn)代人都習(xí)慣了接受新事物，且不管代價(jià)幾何。John Updike: 約翰?厄普代克（1932—2009），美國作家，作品風(fēng)格獨(dú)特，富于地方色彩，代表作有長篇小說《兔子，跑吧》等。
2. Apple’s tablet: 蘋果公司出品的平板電腦，于2010年1月推出，tablet原意為“寫字板”；electric trouser-press: 熨褲子的電熨燙機(jī)。
3. bewildering: 令人困惑的。
4. mildewed: 發(fā)霉的；tombstone: 墓碑。
5. snigger: 嘲笑，竊笑；predate: 早于……的；presidency: 總統(tǒng)的職務(wù)（任期）。
6. Dubonnet: 杜本內(nèi)茴香酒，始創(chuàng)于1846年；lemonade: 檸檬汽水。
7. upgrade: 升級(jí)；incredulously: 表示懷疑地。
8. dumped: 廢棄的；debris: 垃圾，碎片。
9. satirically-minded: 意在嘲諷的；discard: 丟棄。
10. toaster: 烤面包機(jī)；PC: = personal computer，個(gè)人電腦，指臺(tái)式機(jī)；vacuum cleaner: 真空吸塵器。
11. conservative: 保守的，指保守估計(jì)。
12. chuck: 扔，拋。
13. PE: = physical education，體育課。
14. flush: 沖洗（尤指抽水馬桶）；loo: <英俚> 廁所；dodgy club: 此處應(yīng)指搖滾樂酒吧，該詞源自Dodgy Club（英國搖滾樂隊(duì)Dodgy建立的酒吧，樂隊(duì)常在該酒吧中演唱）。
15. ceaseless: 不停的；gadget: 小裝置，小機(jī)件。
16. whiz: 颼颼地移動(dòng)，飛馳。
17. redundant: 多余的。
18. remote-control: 遙控器；thingy: = thingummy，[用以指不知其名或暫時(shí)忘記其名的人或事物]那個(gè)人，那個(gè)東西；mislay: 放錯(cuò)。
19. predecessor: 前輩；Schubert: 舒伯特（1797—1828），奧地利作曲家；canteen: 食堂；fountain-pen: 鋼筆。
20. high-powered: 精力充沛的；tow: 拖；crate: 裝貨箱。
21. good grief: （表示詫異或恐懼）哎呀！天哪！
22. smug: 沾沾自喜的；cutting-edge: 尖端，前沿。
23. lament: 為……哀悼，悲傷。
24. slab: 薄片；fag: <口> 香煙。
25. fluff:（毛毯等落下的）絨毛；dustbin: 垃圾桶。
26. Tube: <英> 地鐵。
27. built-in instant obsolescence: 指（家庭用品）固有的會(huì)很快落伍的屬性。
28. wireless: 無線電收音機(jī)。
29. pump out: 噴出，此處指“播放（節(jié)目）”。
30. grumpy: 壞脾氣的。
31. idiosyncrasy: 特色，特性。
32. 你得知道怎么摁鍵子，撥旋鈕，以便從刺啦聲中找到能聽出模樣兒的講話或音樂。
33. mystique: 神秘性。
34. the big ones that Moses dragged down the mountain: 指《圣經(jīng)?舊約》提及的在西奈山上由上帝親授摩西的“十條誡命”石板。
（來源：英語學(xué)習(xí)雜志）
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