Last Fathers' Day I got an Amazon Echo. It's a wonderful piece of kit, enabling me to switch lights on or off, control the heating, play music, find out what the traffic is like on the school run, get news, weather and sports reviews and tell my son and I jokes, all with a simple, spoken question. Echo is at its best though when another parent arrives to pick their child up from a play date. They arrive and the kids ask, "Alexa, how old is xyz?" or "What's the news on xyz?" Of course, the results rarely relate to the actual person in question, but the reaction of the kids when Alexa tells them that "xyz is 78 years old" or "xyz was imprissoned for embezzlement in 2016" provides great amusement. It also helps our guests leave a little more quickly!
