In his column in the Times Online, Bob MacIntyre laments the advent of the satellite navigation system that are, in his words, “are gradually killing off maps, the charts that have revealed the changing contours of our world and minds since the birth of culture . . . . With a GPS embedded in dashboard, wristwatch or mobile telephone, we will never be lost again.”

“The paper map will soon die, and with it something central to human experience. There is a joy is not knowing exactly where you are. The electronic gizmo takes you from A to Z, but it does not show you the place you never knew about, off at the side of the map, the road less travelled. The joy of exploration lies in not knowing exactly where you are, or where you are going, in trying to match the visual world outside with the one-dimensional world represented by the map. Wherever you go now, the machine has got there first.”