It’s a long walk from Hollywood to Sainsbury’s, but on Gadget Man (C4, 8.30pm, 15 September) Richard Ayoade was in a chirpy mood. “I’m not just a brother with a catchy name, I’m also a grandmaster of the gadget,” he grinned, before speeding off to the supermarket at a top speed of 30mph on a scooter-shopping bag hybrid.
Then he hit the aisles, assisted by a wide array of grocery-related gimmickry, like a little hand-held device that tested the ripeness of a peach.
Utterly pointless. Who needs to use a gadget to check a peach instead of giving it a little squeeze? Gadget Man, obviously. And who cares how pointless any of the gadgets were when the multi-talented actor, director, writer and comedian Ayoade was showing them off? All geeky intelligence and man-child awkwardness in equal measure, he’s the perfect choice to host a show for gadget lovers, and he was especially taken with delivery drones, like those currently being trialled by “renowned tax payers and online retailers Amazon.”
Equipped with intelligence and collision-detection technology, drones are, of course, the birth of the flying machines in Terminator 2 that will ultimately destroy us all. The moment they are equipped with any type of laser to scan a package, it’s all over for the human race.
That is quite speculative, so perhaps don’t panic just yet. And, as Ayoade pointed out, delivery drones are currently just a “vision of the future.” Although with the amount of investment going on they may be closer to rollout than even a gadget grandmaster like Ayoade thinks.
No comments yet