Bring it back to the streets

I have an addiction. It’s one of those shameful secrets that quietly festers away, like the embarrassing itch that comes from drunken sex behind a skip. It started off as a harmless bit of fun, but it’s become far more demanding than that. I’m increasingly making excuses to be alone, to indulge my habit, but if I’m honest, I can’t get enough these days. Enough, as a concept, doesn’t really cut it. Loads more, however – well, that can keep me going for hours, while my fiancé sleeps on obliviously in the next room.

What is this obsession, I hear you cry? Is it midget porn? Cocaine? Kraft Cheesy Pasta? No. It is [takes a deep breath] Google Street View. Hi, my name’s Neil, and I’ve got a problem.

Google Street View rose to public prominence a few years ago because a handful of waddling fatties objected to being shown ramming pasties down their throats five yards from the front door of their nearest Greggs. Infringement of privacy, could be having an affair, you can see my psoriasis, blah blah blah. After the fatties had their faces pixellated, everyone seemed to forget about the whole thing. But it’s still out there. And as a means of seeing the world and learning about places on a street-by-street, house-by-house basis, GSV is quite simply peerless. You can zoom in with excruciating clarity, to discover the weeds discreetly poking out of untended gutters, or the group of youths lurking with nefarious intent in the underpass. You can check out what sort of cars people drive on a particular street, and no piece of graffiti is safe from that 360-degree camera, which can go anywhere the tarmac permits.

I started using GSV through my job as a property journalist – it’s a marvellous way to learn about a street you’ve never been to, when you’re writing about a house that’s for sale there. However, the sheer scale of the Street View project has allowed it to take over more and more of my free time, as I obsessively ‘drive’ the wrong way up one-way streets in towns I might like to live in, or towns where I used to live, or work, or drink cider, or towns where my friends used to live, or ex-girlfriends, or basically anyone and anything. You don’t need a reason when you’ve got a broadband connection.

I urge any children reading this to avoid Google Street View – it’s crack for the eyeballs. I’m a hopeless addict now, and I’ll probably always be battling some craving to see what Old Bellsdyke Road in Larbert looks like now that metal storage container has been removed. (Did I mention that GSV gets updated quite frequently?) It’s too late for me, but you can still save yourselves. Just say no…