Muppets On Tour: Farewell to Adelaide

So we’re at the airport, waiting to board for Singapore.

A very relaxed, some might say blobby start to the day. Just veg-ing in the room, before our Uber pickup.

I think we can all agree that Uber is a much more polished product, technologically. Book it, pay the agreed price, then watch the car arrive, all on your phone. You know the name of the driver and the make, model, colour and rego of his car. In a foreign country, language is no barrier, because he already knows where you want to go.

Brilliant.

But, just like those of us who use Google maps to go everywhere, these drivers never need to learn their town. That becomes evident when the app isn’t as smart as a local.

I was following our guy’s progress to us on my phone. His mapped path would bring him out of a side street directly opposite our hotel. Great. Except that there is a fucking great median island down the middle of this 4-lane street.

I saw him pull up to that intersection. I know the number plate and his location, remember. I went out onto the footpath and waved at him, directing him to the parking bay outside the hotel, exactly where the app tells us both is the pickup point.

He seemed unsure what to do next. The common sense answer would be to come out and turn left into Grenfell Street, then go down a few blocks to the next lights, or wherever he could “do a u-ey” to come back on our side of the street. I got the feeling that he was expecting us to carry our suitcases across that 4-lanes of traffic, up and over the central island, and come to him clearly he has not met my wife, is all I will say.

Once he saw that we were not budging, he went back down that side street and cam out a little further along. All this time, the app was telling him he could just cross over to us

A couple of minutes later, he pulled up out the front. Result!

Then he sat there as I wheeled the luggage out to the footpath. Then a click, as he opened his boot for me. Damned decent of him.

I stood at the back of the car, and he got the message, coming around to put the bags in the boot. I might have expected some impairment from an old geezer, but this guy isn’t much more than half my age. I’ll wait, thanks.

Once all is stowed away, we get in, and his only conversation is to tell us to put our seatbelts on. Off we go.

I thought the radio was on, but no-no, he’s talking on the phone. Actually muttering. The ENTIRE drive he is on the phone. I thought he was probably placating an anxious wife about where he was or when he would be home.

We arrived at the airport (it’s not a long drive), and he quickly got out to empty his boot. Either he got the message from us or from his wife. Clearly in a hurry to be gone.

Check-in is pretty standard. Only business class get to check in with a person. The rest of us queued for a cluster of kiosks.

The bagdrop machine is equally sterile, but a little more temperamental. It took a minute waiting for an assistant for it to suddenly burst into life.

The way of the future, ladies and gentlemen.