I see that when looking for directions on Google maps, you're now offered walking routes as well as driving routes, with the ominous warning "Walking directions are in beta. Use caution - This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths." I'll say.

I tracked the walking route Google suggests I use to get from my house to my favorite bar, a journey I'm reasonably familiar with. The recommended Google route would involve me climbing over a metal fence topped with razor wire, into private a gated community that has an "armed response" warning, and then crossing various people's lawns and yards to a locked gate on the other side.

Now, I like adventure in my walking, and I certainly don't mind doing a little light trespassing, and I definitely think that private, gated streets are an abomination. But this still seems too much to take on. I continue to make my way to the bar by the tried and trusted route.

To be fair, Google directs you by exactly the same route even when you're in a car, which would make it even more exciting. The map, as Alfred Korzybski would be the first to tell you, is not the territory. I still don't know what "Walking directions are in beta" means.

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Geoff Nicholson, The Lost Art of Walking, Pedestrianism, Riverhead, Penguin Books