More akin to Sicily than Silicon Valley of late

Manx Radio have got an item that suggests we are set to become the next Silicon Valley which would be good because some of our business interests have been more akin to Sicily than Silicon of late.

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/isle-of-man-a-new-silico...

I wonder what can have induced a reporter with The Times to this flight of fantasy and then discover ‘LOCATE im’ which seems to be part of the ‘Department of Economic Disaster’ as it's based in St Georges Court.

Still who knows as it says on the web site come and LIVE THE DREAM and as I wandered the Northern Plain last week I was certainly living the dream. Apparently though the Island has to many indolent buggers like me. Howard would prefer to see pensioned of loafers like me going into one of those pensioner gulags he saw in New Zealand. The Island needs new blood hence the Silicon Valley pitch.

Intrigued I recall that Scotland was going to become ‘Silicon 2’ then Ireland had a stab at it and seems to be doing quite nicely. Indeed if you type ‘New Silicon Valley’ into Google you get a plethora of suggested locations from Indianapoli to India or Norway to Nigeria. Indeed when journo’s are short of a story in the big wide world they write about a new Silicon Valley. It’s a bit like a quiet day at Manx Radio when someone says: “I know we’ll ring PAG or Travelwatch” the end result has little substance but it fills a few minutes or in the case of The Times a few column inches.

At Forbes they list no less than 13 options for the new Silicon Valley and no...we are not in the list:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/10/17/wheres-the-nex...

At ‘LOCATE im’ they seem to be ‘living the dream’ anyway so that’s nice for them as for us we’re more likely to see series three of ‘Happy Valley’ from the BBC with Sarah Lancashire demonstrating her restraint techniques before we see Silicon Valley on our shores.

Image: Silicon Valley - Happy Valley more like!

Bernard Moffatt