People claim that technology has ruined many things: communication, egg poaching, newspapers…the list is endless. It (technology) has its mucky paws on the insane street cranks.

There was one in Piccadilly Gardens this morning. They used to stand on boxes and shout out down a loudhailer about …I don’t know, Big Brother being a sign that the end of the world is nigh. Or something. But whatever they were talking about you had to make a bit of an effort to ignore. You sure as fuck didn’t want to listen to the shit they were spouting about how one sentence in the bible could be twisted to mean anything, especially if a possible interpretation could be applied to something that didn’t exist when The Bible was written a few hundred years ago.

This guy today wasn’t stood on a box and he didn’t have a loudhailer. He had one of them head microphones that your pop singer (eg Madonna, Cliff Richard) wears while on stage. Your pop star wears one to free up their hands and allow for mobility so they can for a dance routine while performing one of their hits (Vogue/Saviour’s Day). This man wasn’t dancing. He wasn’t even using his hands to make a point. And the microphone wasn’t connected to a large speaker – there was clearly something but it wasn’t a speaker. It was something small and not very powerful. It resulted in his speech being amplified so it sounded like he was talking slightly louder than he was – but not as loud as someone might speak to attract attention of passing people.