From time to time on this page, I like to suggest modern contenders for the Kingsley Amis Prize, which I award every so often to the phrase I currently judge to be the most depressing in the English language.
Set up in memory of the late whisky-loving novelist, it celebrates Amis’s famous declaration that the most heart-sinking words he knew were ‘Shall we go straight in?’ — followed closely by ‘Red or white?’
Recent contenders for the award, as regular readers may recall, include ‘Your call is important to us’ and Amazon Alexa’s constantly repeated mantra: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know that one.’
But these past few months of lockdown have thrown up a richer crop of candidates than ever before.
Among them, of course, is the broadcasters’ daily incantation: ‘…which brings the total number of deaths to…’. But I disqualify this, on the grounds that it is too tragic to fit in with the light-hearted spirit of the prize.
Others that depress me deeply include the newsreaders’ folksy sign-off, ‘Keep safe’, and the Government’s slogan: ‘Hands, face, space’.
Why do our masters feel they have to address us in Playschool baby-talk? We’re not all five years old.
Stefan Thomas, a computer programmer based in California’s Silicon Valley, was paid 7,002 Bitcoins in 2011 for making an animated video explaining how this mysterious crypto-currency works
Hacker
But in my view, one two-word phrase stands out as the most depressing of the lockdown, guaranteed to make even the most buoyant heart sink. Younger readers may be bewildered, but I suspect at least a few of my age and older (I’m 67) may understand my choice.
In these grim times when so many of us are forced to rely on the internet for our needs — from shopping and banking to keeping up with friends and family — I reckon the most depressing words in the English language today are these:
‘Password incorrect’.
We’ve all been there — or a great many of us oldies have, anyway. We’ve found exactly what we want, with the promise of delivery in a couple of days. But then those fateful words flash up on the screen: ‘Enter username and password’. And we know that all is lost.
Yes, I’m aware that more internet-savvy folk of my generation use the autofill facility, which spares them the trauma of trying to remember passwords by filling them in automatically.
But I’ve never trusted technology I don’t understand. If I allow a device to remember my password, doesn’t that increase the risk a hacker will find it out, too?
I also know that many people use the same password for every website. (Wags often say that we should choose the word ‘incorrect’, so that we’re reminded of it every time the computer tells us: ‘Password is incorrect’.)
Mr Thomas is by no means the first man who has reason to regret having been careless with his Bitcoins. Picture: Stock
But this is surely a mug’s game, since a hacker has to strike lucky only once to gain access to every aspect of our lives, from our bank details to our Amazon account and our taste for lamb pasanda from the local Indian takeaway.
Nor is it much good clicking the link that asks: ‘Forgotten password?’ As often as not, the wretched computer will then tell us: ‘Username not recognised.’ Yah, boo, sucks to us.
So there we sit, racking our brains to remember whether or not there’s a dot in our username, and if the password we used for John Lewis was our sister’s address, the middle name and birthday of our first grandchild or the nickname of our geography teacher at school.
Don’t these techno-wizards understand that by the time people reach my age, our memories are so full that we simply can’t store anything new?
But enough of my woes. This week, the world learned of someone who has arguably even greater cause than you or I to regret his inability to recall a password.
I’m thinking of Stefan Thomas, a computer programmer based in California’s Silicon Valley, who in 2011 was paid 7,002 Bitcoins for making an animated video explaining how this mysterious crypto-currency works.
More from Tom Utley for the Daily Mail…
That year, the price of a Bitcoin fluctuated from a few pounds to a peak of about £25. But Mr Thomas didn’t cash in his Bitcoins immediately, storing them instead in a digital wallet on an IronKey hard drive (no, don’t ask me).
Guessing
A decade on, as I write this column on Thursday afternoon, a single Bitcoin is priced at £28,960.44 (though given the extreme volatility of the currency, this may have changed radically by the time you read this).
By my calculation, this puts the value of Mr Thomas’s holding at almost £203 million. Lucky chap!
Just one snag. The poor fellow can’t for the life of him remember the password for his IronKey device, written ten years ago on a piece of paper he promptly lost.
Apparently, IronKey users are allowed only ten attempts to enter the correct password before the device locks up and scrambles its contents irretrievably.
At the time of writing, Mr Thomas has had eight stabs at guessing his, without success. Only two to go — and a barely imaginable fortune at stake.
At this stage, I must make a shameful confession. As soon as this story broke, I resolved to learn about Bitcoin so I could offer readers a simple explanation of how it works. I studied any number of idiots’ guides on the internet — but the truth is I remain as clueless as ever.
What’s a ‘Qt user interface toolkit’, when it’s at home? What’s ‘blockchain synchronization time’ or a ‘Segregated Witness [SegWit] soft fork’?
The only salient point I’ve managed to grasp is that once you’ve forgotten or lost your private key, there is no way on Earth you can gain access to your money. Ever.
Indeed, Mr Thomas is by no means the first man who has reason to regret having been careless with his Bitcoins.
Consider James Howells, the computer engineer from Newport, Wales, who says he accidentally threw away his laptop hard drive, which contains Bitcoins worth £230 million. He’s now offering Newport Council more than £55 million to dig up his local rubbish tip in search of it.
Pizzas
Another is Laszlo Hanyecz, who made what is said to have been the first known commercial transaction using Bitcoins, when he gave 10,000 of them for two Papa John’s pizzas back in 2010.
Laszlo Hanyecz made what is said to have been the first known commercial transaction using Bitcoins, when he gave 10,000 of them for two Papa John’s pizzas back in 2010
If he’d clung on to the currency instead, his hoard would have been worth £290 million at yesterday’s exchange rate. Ah, well, I just hope he enjoyed the pizzas.
Freak fluctuations and baffling technology aside, however, I suppose that Bitcoin is much like any other currency.
True, it isn’t regulated by a central bank — unlike the pound, the euro or the dollar. And unlike them, its exchange rate is not determined by investors’ confidence in the performance of any given economy.
But when all is said and done (though economists may be quick to correct me), doesn’t the value of any currency depend ultimately on how much buyers are prepared to pay for it?
In that respect, surely, Bitcoin can no more accurately be described as ‘funny money’ than our own dear, wobbly pound? In fact perhaps rather less so, since we are told the number of Bitcoins that can be issued is pegged at 21 million, wired into the currency’s computer programme.
No such limits apply to sterling, which has been rolling off the presses in its trillions over the past ten months, as if there’s no tomorrow. How much longer can it hold its value, while the Government goes on dishing it out like confetti?
That said, I wouldn’t touch Bitcoin with a bargepole. It’s far too baffling, too terrifying in its ups and downs — and if you need to remember a password to reach your dosh, that’s me done for before I start.
Meanwhile, I’ll draw comfort from thinking of Mr Thomas and Mr Howells the next time my computer tells me: ‘Password incorrect’.
True, I find them among the most depressing words in the English language. But it’s always nice to know that others have yet more reason to moan.