Spatial Awareness

There's a special feeling of relaxed contentment when you're back home from the dentist.

Shards of memory: lying back, staring at fluorescent grills in the ceiling, everything yellow through the goggles; the steel hypodermic syringe, floating above my face, orienting there .. and there; the pressure of fluid building up in the gums.

The pretty, full-faced assistant asks the dentist, "Is there anything you need?"

Sotto voce I hear his reply: "Spatial awareness ... ."

I manage a contorted smile.

Later it seemed to me that he was a dead ringer, sight and sound, for Moriarty in BBC's "Sherlock".

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I'm reading "Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World" by Bruce Schneier.  It's an easy read and brimful of fascinating information about government and corporate surveillance.

I've been trying to identify the chronic, low-level irritation I'm experiencing as I turn the Kindle pages. And now it's dawned on me:  that moralising tone. It's the same feeling I get when reading The Guardian.