Off the Cuff: When you’re appy and you know it

I have a new app that tells me where I am anywhere in the world and how many footsteps it is to where I want to go.

I’ve even downloaded a map on Monrovia in case I ever go there. I don’t even know where it is.

Madrid to Moscow

I can now drive from Madrid to Moscow and never run out of petrol because every filling station pops up. Parking, too, plus alternative routes in case traffic is bad.

I can drive anywhere across Europe all the way to Vladivostock, or from the bottom of Italy to the top of Scotland — and Iceland — and never lose my way or be hard pressed to park.

So too the Baltic states, all 50 of the United States, plus Puerto Rico and the US dependencies. You never know where you’ll end up if you’re going for a drive.

I have seven pages of apps on my phone.

Do you know what to cook if you have some cooked white rice, a tin of sardines and a smelly jar of outdated olives in your fridge? Well I do. I could rustle up something tasty from that lot — but I’m still not convinced about the out-of-date black olives. Maybe they’ll turn green if I leave them there a bit longer. And isn’t the expiration date of July 2017 only a suggestion anyway.

All you have to do is type in what you have, and voila, a gourmet meal.

Futuristic city

I have 19 news apps on my phone. They all basically report the same thing at the same time and sure the news in on 24-hour news channels on television anyway. But I can’t sit in front of CNN all day and it’s better to have backups for sure. Maybe 19 is a little excessive, but you never know. One of them might have something the others don’t have — and the breaking news alert would be timely as I’m parking somewhere in the Upper Volga region on my drive to Rostov-on-Don.

I can tell you how noisy it is in decibels when I start my car or drive with the window open. I also know the altitude of where I am at any given time.

I can build a futuristic city and erase it at the touch of a screen. I have the ability to turn a pristine forest into a kingdom that can dominate the world, fly an A380 from London to New York in five minutes, fight a Second World War tank battle over coffee and toast and monitor my heart rate and blood pressure.

You never know what your blood pressure might be like when taking a wrong turn at Gdansk, should I ever have to drive there and can’t find petrol or a parking spot.

I can tell the time and know what time it is anywhere in the world, never miss a train anywhere across Europe and compare hotel rooms in towns I never even heard of.

Did you know that I have three different calculators on my phone just in case one doesn’t work? One even looks like an old scientific one I had just before I graduated from secondary school.

I can book a flight from anywhere to anywhere else should I not be able to drive. I’ll have a map for anywhere, too.

And I just discovered my phone can make a call.