Machines

I really tried. Honestly. A TV programme called 'All watched over by Machines of Loving Grace' sounded like a fine way to end a rain-roaked bank holiday with a bit of academic rigour.  It seemed to be telling me that there is a  computer programme that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will. Divinity has nothing to do with it, as Shakespeare thought. We have no choice in the matter: sooner or later nature dictates how life develops and ends up. The computer will ensure that our needs are met by a pre-established pattern of nature. It has always been so, although we didn't know it until a screen linked to the etheric demonstrated what was there for anybody to see: an inevitable pathway to fulfilment, and/or disaster. So there is nothing I can do about it: I am programmed by some ineffable force. Freewill? forget it. After 45 minutes of this hour-long stuff, I must have dozed off, because I woke to see Swansea getting into the Premiership. 'Must have been meant' I thought, and slid off to bed. The programme-planners on BBC2 had some hopes, popping 'Machines of Loving Grace' into the schedules on a bank holiday when viewers would have to be razor-sharp alert to make head or tales of it. A glass or two of best Chilean red had left me looking for something less strenuous to watch, and that it was all total baloney. Or was John Calvin right to teach predestination.?