No more progress, please …
I don’t think this has anything to do with Covid-madness because I was convinced that the modern world of technology had got it in for me (simply because I was over the age of 50) long before Boris’ original lockdown in March.
About a fortnight ago, when out and about taking a bit of Government-recommended exercise, I got caught in one of those end-of-the-world Arctic monsoon hailstorms that these days habitually sweeps through West London during the run up to the annual UK August Bank Holiday – some Rusters may recall the days before 1987 when August in Blighty could be relied upon to be as hot as downtown Casablanca during a heat wave.
Sheltering on the pavement under the branches of an over-hanging tree, I had then extracted my smartphone from my track suit pocket in order to try and restore the connection between my BBC Sounds app and my Bluetooth-powered earpiece, whose live broadcast of Radio Five Live had been interrupted – I assumed – by the sheer strength of the weather incident taking place.
After two or three minutes of stabbing the screen of my smartphone – the new version of which I had owned for less than six months and originated in a country which the USA is convinced is deliberately “monitoring” all 5G networks being introduced around the world but which I shall not name here [suffice it to say that President Xi Jingpin of China is reportedly able to monitor my phone calls in real time from his desk in Beijing] – it became apparent that my attempts to restore normal working order would be in vain.
I therefore continued upon my trudge and then – upon reaching home again – left my smartphone beside a drawing room radiator in the hope or expectation that the warmth would dry out the phone to any extent that it might have been rain-damaged.
One slightly ominous aspect of the situation was that by this time there was a blue-ink-hued “bleed” of colour diagonally across the bottom half of the smartphone screen.
Over the next 48 hours this “bleed” gradually grew until I could no longer make out anything on the screen – never mind not being able to read what I was texting, I couldn’t even see where to tap the screen in order to “unlock” it by providing my password/PIN number!
It was about this time that I went to visit my daughter who – being of the generation after mine – knows everything about technology that I don’t.
Having confirmed that my phone – which hitherto I had assumed was impregnable and able to operate at 100 metres below the surface of any ocean – had been rendered kaput by a few drops of rainwater landing on it during a monsoon, my daughter lent me one of her old phones as a temporary measure until her “little local man wot does” down the road could look at my phone and assess the extent of the problem.
Last Monday I received the answer – my phone had suffered a major crisis. It could be repaired, possibly, by the man concerned replacing the screen and tidying things up at and estimated cost of £200.
Alternatively, I could buy a “reconditioned” phone myself produced by the same maker – or possibly another maker of smartphones – online … and then simply continue to operate under my current contract but not via the phone I started it with (if you see what I mean).
Faced with those options I chose the first, figuring that it would be better (effectively) to if possible continue using my original phone on my current contract … rather than to switch to a quite different model.
I’m still coming to terms with the fact that a few spots of rain – combined with the fact I declined the phone company’s offer of an insurance package to cover such things as “phone death by flooding” at the time of taking on their contract (because you never need to claim on your insurance policy, do you?) – will later this week cause me to fork out another £200 to get my normal smartphone working again.
Quite separately, I “came to” overnight and waddled to my computer with a vat of strong black coffee at 0045 hours this morning, ready to commence my “day shift”.
As I pressed the “on” button to my computer a message came up on the screen “Please do not turn off – Microsoft is re-configurating your software …” (or something very similar).
There then followed a period of 47 minutes during which I could make no progress at all, but instead had to stare at a blue computer screen upon which a series of round white dots were circulating clockwise … presumably in order to indicate that something was happening.
I hate the modern world in which computers and software packages randomly decide they don’t care what their owner wishes to do, but instead that they are going to do something – something which might well change one’s computer so that one doesn’t know how to work it anymore – without even asking your permission to do this first!
Bring back the typewriter, I say!