How to ditch a life according to Google
 

Have a google pixel smartphone , quite nice , no "clutter" if you like

I am not particularly savvy with smartphones , quite ok with IT generally pc & mac laptops just haven't got the "time at the wheel" on smartphone

But would like to ditch some of prompts & stuff pixel has decided to start involving me in. Just today went to a beach in Sydney & started getting all these prompts from google maps to review stuff nearby

Just not interested in this , how do you disable all this annoying smartphone stuff ? Like I say I like the handset but I don't want to be the Google man living the google life

Also if you have the gmail app , is their anyway to lock it , or will it always open when you tap on it. Just don't want everyone knowing my whole if they happen to pick up my phone

Thanks guys - what a grumpy old twit I have become

On my Sony Experia its settings, apps and notifications, configure notifications, notifications (will show on for all apps) then go to the individual app and set them to off.
No way of locking individual apps unless the app has its own password (very few do) but I would strongly recommend that you set the phone lock, either via PIN or fingerprint (both preferably), you don't want your phone to be open to anyone.

And turn off the GPS! As well as leading to all sorts of rubbish being pushed at you, it seems to consume rather a lot of battery life.

How do I actually turn off the GPS on a pixel

Well, you could maybe :

1) Read the manual
2) Type your question into Google
3) Or just look here, because I just did the above for you

https://support.google.com/pixelphon.../6179507?hl=en