Cyclists and phones

From time to time stuff happens.

For example, every day I witness both cyclists (and/or  grown adults riding what I believe are called “e-scooters”) riding on roads and thereby annoying those at the wheel of genuine road vehicles … or else along pavements and then simultaneously annoying and placing in mortal danger the dwindling number of us who still get about on foot.

The one thing that totally evades my personal understanding is why – when our ever-more-“woke”-dominated local authorities have spent billions that the nation cannot afford creating specialist “cycle lanes” all over our major cities … thereby simultaneously bringing road traffic to a permanent halt …  half the lycra-clad pedalling loonies on two wheels still refuse to use them but instead (because they can, presumably) chose instead to continue speeding along pavements, scattering pedestrians left, right and centre as they go.

That’s why yesterday, when invited to by a member of the public selling the Big Issue, I was only too willing to add my signature to the “Hang All Cyclists Without Trial” petition that has recently passed the 4,000 mark in my local town square.

The other thing bugging my life at the moment is my smartphone, which seems to have completely given up the ghost as regards working.

Let me be blunt.

I only ever use my smartphone for making phone calls – or sending texts or WhatsApp messages – and occasionally looking at the BBC Weather app.

As far as I’m concerned that’s all that phones are for.

If I want to take a photograph, I use my camera. That’s what camera are for.

If I want to send an email, I use my computer. That what’s … [you get my drift] …

And so on.

That’s why, when I acquire my latest smartphone the first thing I did was “uninstall” all the Apps I could that were supplied with it but which I either didn’t want and/or didn’t understand what they did (and therefore also didn’t want) … and then (with all those Apps that came factory-supplied and which the user is therefore unable to “uninstall”) I clicked on the “Force Stop” button.

At my age of life (69) – being old-fashioned in the sense that I either like to be in control of the technology I use and/or (if I can’t be) then I’d rather not have it – I figure that I can both limit my energy bills and also do my bit to “save the planet” by not having my phone running its battery down approximately every half hour because it boasts 100 Apps that I would never use constantly whirring away in the background.

My above approach has kept me in relatively good stead until – whenever – the phone stops working, as mine has over the last couple of months.

Time was when the signal supplied by my service provider (Vodafone) could reach my phone everywhere in the world bar the 5% of the UK that I have never visited … and never will.

By yesterday, however, my phone had reached the point where it only receives a signal in about 5% of the UK, with the result that ordinarily I can now take or make calls only about once a week and – even when I do – I “lose” the signal/call about every thirty seconds.

Thus a ten-minute phone call now takes me about an hour … with either me or the other participant ringing back every time the signal is lost, followed by a frustrating game of “kick tennis” with both of us shouting “Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” at our end and hearing nothing back in response.

Yesterday afternoon I went to see my man in the local computer shop [he also knows a bit about phones], just to see if he could tell whether I’d accidentally messed  about with the “settings” too much (and thereby somehow caused all my own problems) or whether perhaps there was some other explanation.

After examining it, he suggested that possibly the SIM card might have been water-damaged on the occasion that I tried to use my phone in a thunderstorm as a result of which rain somehow got into it and ruined the screen – which I then had to get replaced at a cost of £200 plus VAT.

Separately, my high street Vodafone shop yesterday had staff in it but they weren’t admitting customers – they were operating a “click and collect” service only, they explained, after I had thumped the door until they came to see what my issue was.

How can any business have a operating system whereby it has staff present in its stores but doesn’t allow customers in?

Surely the whole purpose of having a high street presence at all is (or ought) to be there for customers, or possible customers, who walk in off the street?

I suppose this lot are operating on some advantageous Government scheme whereby their staff are all furloughed anyway (thus being 80% funded by the taxpayer) and then they save time, effort and even the complication factor or actually having to bring their staff in to work … by not admitting any customers.

It’s the 21^st Century equivalent of the UK economy. Simples, really!