Not too serious into the New Year: All the best for all of you!

In all my ways...

A frightening obsession has taken hold of me and I have long since become the plaything of uncontrollable compulsive actions. Just a few years ago, I joked with undisguised arrogance about the ubiquitous mobile phone junkies who fiddled with their devices virtually non-stop and whose loudly conducted marathon conversations were hard to beat in terms of content.

Meanwhile, my mobile phone, the size of a briquette, lay unnoticed in some drawer and when I really needed it, the status message "battery capacity exhausted" flashed at me derisively. In such a messed-up relationship, one is susceptible to all kinds of technical gadgetry. The desire for something new in the form of a smartphone was born. Somehow it was love at first sight and so it was not surprising that we ended up in bed only a few hours later, because there I could familiarise myself with the functions of my new acquisition in undisturbed togetherness.

Outside the bedroom, too, my Smarty proved to be a true jack-of-all-trades whose diverse functions and capabilities are clearly superior to my own brain power. So I delegated more and more tasks to the electronic appendage and can be absolutely sure that the negligence I was accused of is over once and for all. But it's not the numerous, constantly beeping reminder functions that make a smartphone so special, but the possibility of upgrading it with tens of thousands of more or less useful applications (apps). So now I walk around constantly with a spirit level, metal detector, torch, compass, barometer, altimeter and pulse and step counter, among other things....

When asked, it can tell me the population of Goch or inform me about the current weather in Tallahassee (Florida/USA). Of course, it also solves arithmetic problems or helps me find the car I parked somewhere by means of GPS instructions. With Smarty, I could communicate in 63 languages, so I wouldn't have to spend an evening with an Azerbaijani table neighbour without a word. I quickly spoke a few German sentences into the Smarty and almost simultaneously the gentleman - and unfortunately all the other guests as well - could hear my drivel in his mother tongue - of course the whole thing also works in the opposite language direction.

In the meantime, I have freed my brain from any intellectual ballast. One reach into my jacket pocket - and I already have access to all the knowledge that has accumulated in the course of human history - or did you know, for example, that the former Musikantenstadl presenter Karl Moik was born on 19 June 1938 or that our former Federal Chancellor's middle name is Dorothea? And anyone who feels the need for a quiet place to go in the noisy hustle and bustle of the big city is well off if they have one of the numerous toilet finder apps installed on their smartphone.

The number of apps I have installed is frightening - and more are added every day. For example, I know at all times which plane is flying overhead and if I hold my smarty towards a loudspeaker, it shows me who is singing what and immediately provides me with the corresponding song lyrics to sing along (incorrectly and loudly).

I no longer dare leave the house without my smartphone - it accompanies me everywhere I go. And when I then speak the words borrowed from the Bible "Let there be light" in the dark of night, it actually becomes bright around me. After all, my Smarty has a torch function that responds to speech ;-))