Oh, waiter, can I pay with this microchipped finger?
Published: 10 February 2013
We have been informed by the government that we have three years to microchip our dogs. And that if we fail to comply, we will be fined up to ?500. This is normally the sort of bullying nonsense that makes me want to spit tacks and vandalise a bus shelter.
But I?ve read the details and I?m alarmed to say that the new law seems to make sense.
At present more than 100,000 dogs a year are either dumped or lost, and these days the police are too busy investigating dead disc jockeys to cycle around the parish comparing those out-of-focus ?missing? posters on lampposts with the forlorn collection of pooches they have in the station kennels.
We can hardly expect the RSPCA to help out, either. Well, we can, but sadly this once great charity is now little more than a branch of the Communist party, which would rather spend its money prosecuting people for living near David Cameron than help a little girl to find her lost labrador.
In fact, the RSPCA seems to have rather missed the point of the chipping scheme, with a spokesman saying it will do little to prevent dogs from biting other animals such as hedgehogs, badgers or, horror of horrors, possibly even one of the charity?s beloved foxes. This is true. Other things it will not prevent include barking at postmen and urinating.
However, those of us who are not mainly interested in resurrecting the ghost of Stalin can see there is one big advantage. The chip containing your details is inserted into a small glass cylinder the size of a grain of rice that is then injected into your dog?s back.
So, if it?s lost, the dog can be scanned in the same way that you scan vegetables at the supermarket and, hey presto, it?ll be back in its own bed, drinking warm milk by nightfall. Brilliant. And, at the moment, it can be done free. It?s so brilliant, in fact, that I started to wonder why, for instance, you could not insert a similar chip in your laptop and your phone or even your children.
You may argue, of course, that if a lost child is subsequently found, a chip is not necessary, because they are capable of telling their rescuers what their name is and where they live. But what if they?re not found?
As we all know, your mobile phone is constantly telling anyone who cares to look where you are. So long as the battery is connected, it?s a non-stop homing beacon. So why do Apple and BlackBerry not start selling parents the technology that can do this? Insert it into a child?s back and when they wander off at the supermarket, you can wave goodbye to the misery of spinning round and round in pointless circles and in just a few moments find out exactly where they?ve gone.
Naturally, it gets better. Because later in life, when they are 16 and they say they are popping out to the library to catch up on some physics homework, you can determine whether this is true, or whether, in reality, they are doing 90mph in a mate?s Vauxhall Corsa, on their way to the Duck and Sick Bag.
Indeed, as I lay in the bath last night, considering all the advantages of chipping children, I hit upon an even bigger brainwave: chipping myself.
I bet the government has already had many meetings about this. Because if every single person in the country were chipped, they?d know where we?d been, who we?d been with and how fast we?d driven home. Such a scheme would free up so much police time, they?d be able to investigate even more dead DJs.
But, of course, there?s the pesky question of human rights. We don?t necessarily want Mr Cameron to know where we were last night, so we may be reluctant to provide him with a means of finding out. And we may remain reluctant right up to the point where we realise the advantages.
For many years boffins have inserted electronic devices into our bodies to regulate the beat of our heart and alter our mood and even bring about orgasm. But this, I feel, is just the start.
Look at that tiny chip in your credit card. Why does it have to be mounted in a bit of plastic that one day, as sure as eggs are eggs, you will lose? Why can it not be sewn into the palm of your hand, which, unless you go shoplifting in Saudi Arabia, you will not?
There are other advantages, too. There?s no reason why, when you pick up a product at the supermarket, its sensors cannot read your chip and automatically deduct its cost from your bank account. This would mean no more queuing at the checkout tills.
It?s the same story at airports because the electronic chip in a modern passport would easily fit into your earlobe. You just walk past a scanner and ? ping. You?re in. And, of course, your other earlobe could contain details of your driving licence, which would cut the time it takes to rent a car from the current average of around 16 hours to just a few seconds.
Pub landlords would also welcome the idea because at present they have to serve a six-year-old child with six double vodkas simply because they have produced a scrap of ID, written in crayon, that says they?re actually 18. But with chipping, he?d know.
You could have an electronic ignition key for your car sewn into one thumb and a complex laptop password sewn into the other. And never again would you forget to withdraw your card from the cash dispenser because you wouldn?t need one. Simply insert your wedding ring finger into the slot and seconds later bundles of delicious money will pour forth.
You could even have a chip containing your medical records sewn into your genitals so that on one-night stands your partner would be able to determine whether you were suffering from anything they would rather not catch. The possibilities are quite literally endless.
It?s been said for many years that your body is a temple. And that?s fine. But I?d quite like mine to be a mobile phone and a credit card as well.
