The iPhone has landed!

As some of you know (see previous blog if you don't) I have recently parted company with a certain media platform, represented by a small winged blue avian. Now, I am NOT the sort of individual to reacts well to be chucked off stuff (also see previous blog), so having tried various return pathways, and being told '*itter says no', it was decided (note the distancing phrase) to buy an iPhone.

It seemed a good idea when suggested. I could join the 99.9% of the population. No more lurking about in the Doro cave. Bright new horizons of communication, bathed in the sunshine of up-to-dateness beckoned. I was seduced. My only stipulation was that the new phone had to be RED.

And it arrived. And it was red. And so the nightmare began. Going from the dumbPhone to this phone was like landing on a new planet without a Lonely Planet travel guide. In the past few days I have reached levels of incompetence so low you couldn't limbo under them.

1. I thought ALL these devices were called iPhones. Yup. Only was abused of this when I met a friend for coffee and was told that her phone was a Samsung.

2. You know that thing where the optician says: 'So, what's the lowest line you can read on the screen?' and your brain goes: 'What line?' That. They don't make these devices for the myopic, do they?

3. It doesn't like my cold finger (if you wish to sing 'Cold Finger' at this point, please don't). 

4. Autocorrect. The typist's worst enema. I bought a lovely jumper for Small in the sale, took a picture and sent it to You Must Be Mad in New York. The jumper was by Boden. NOT BIDEN - OK???

5. I have lost 25.8k lovely followers by being chucked off *witter. Given my lack of competence, I will probably never get them all back.

But. Rome wasn't burned in a day. And in 3 weeks, Little G (and Small) are coming to the UK for a visit, so I shall pick her brain, because even an 8 year old has to be more savvy than I am right now. Meanwhile it's a case of onward through the fog. Or  'frog' as autocorreect would probably say.

A Bad Case of Mobile Madness

As many of you know, I have a tenuous relationship with technology. Actually, my level of competence is so low, you couldn't limbo under it. And so, at the back end of last year, the Other Grumpy Old Sod persuaded me to buy a Doro mobile, on the basis that it was advertised as ideal for the elderly and mentally incontinent, thus rendering it eminently suitable to my requirements.

The suggestion was made on the back of my previous three mobiles going wrong (the most technical I get upon these matters), plus the fact that every time I used his iPhone, a conversation ensued containing the phrase: 'Now what have you done?' And for a few months, it was good. Very good. And then last Bank Holiday Monday, I lost it at the garden centre.

In my defence, I was minding the 2 yr old and 4 yr old at the time while their mother was somewhere else buying plants, and before you roll your eyes, your options are extremely limited if you are standing in a pay-queue with a loaded tray and the grandchildren suddenly decided to re-enact The Great Escape. Unless you have taken the pre-precaution of tying them to you with strong cord. Which I had failed to do.

In the ensuing fracas, my mobile must've dropped out of my bag. It took me 24 hours to realise it was missing. A further day was spent scouring the house/daughter's house and car. I then used the landline to ring back places I'd visited, and lo! second call elicited the joyous news that the mobile had been handed in at the garden centre and it was in their safe. Safe.

You really want this to now end with 'and they all lived happily ever after', don't you? Sadly not. Between the loss of the phone and its subsequent return, something had happened to the relationship between it and the charger, which refused point blank to charge it. Thus, armed with charger and phone, I sallied forth to the EE phone shop once more, and explained to the 12 year old behind the counter that I had suffered another #phonefail.

After testing both items, it proved to be the charger that was at fault. Which didn't entirely surprise me, as it is plugged in by the gas hob and might, possibly, have got closer to a lit gas ring that it should've. The 12 year old then looked thoughtful, did some lip-pursing, and frowning, and told me that if I wanted to save £7, it would be actually cheaper to buy the rock bottom 'I wouldn't give a phone like that to my cat' mobile, as the charger that came with it was compatible with my phone.

So that is the reason why I am currently the possessor of two mobile phones, upping, at a stroke, my potential for #phonefail by 100%!  OK, in theory, I am in a better position, as I have a fallback phone. But don't hold your breath, is all I can advise.

Living in Interesting Times

Harpenden in the Snow (pic. Alison Woodley)

We live in interesting times, as the saying goes. For some of us, the times are slightly more interesting that we'd like. Last week, a few days before Christmas, FIVE letters arrived from the two hospitals who are dealing with the aftermath of my cancer operation. Cancermin gone mad.

Before we go there, a piece of advice: Do Not Research Cancer Causing Symptoms on the Internet. Apparently my cancer could have been caused by: cigarettes/weight/age/coffee/alcohol/salt/red meat/smoked food/air pollution/stress. No mention of the current government, but I'm pretty convinced they must be part of it.

Briefly, I shall be spending most of January shuttling between the Luton & Dunstable Hospital (checkups, follow on checkups, bone scan etc) and Mount Vernon Hospital, where I am slowly going to morph into Radioactive Woman. Stand next to me at bus stops at your peril. In preparation for this, I have now been CT scanned and Marked In Indelible Pen. After a while, you just withdraw into your head and let them get on with it.

To add to the fun, the dumbphone has packed up. It started a while ago when it kept locking me out. Then it refused point blank to send any texts. Cue taking it into a local EE shop, where a pair of twelve year olds in blue overalls with the yellow EE logo took it apart, re-assembled it, and informed me that there was nothing more they could do.

Thus acquisition of New Phone. Luckily, the other Grumpy Old Sod is a big fan of Classic FM and knew immediately that the right phone for the non-techie-with-tendency-to-shout-at-and-break-phones was the one they've been pushing as the ideal Xmas gift for the over 80s. So while he has a brand new white Apple iPhone with gold edges, I have a black one with BIG keys and SIMPLE instructions. Happy? Yep, though I'd have preferred a red one.

Life is all about survival in one form or another, isn't it? Sometimes this means adopting a different strategy, sometimes it means adapting to a new one. As the days lurch unsteadily downhill towards the gate of 2018, I'd like to wish all the readers of this blog a Happy New Year. Resolutions? I don't make them. Let's just say that if I and the mobile phone haven't packed up by December 31st, 2018, I shall chalk it up as a success! Cheers!

The Conspiracy of Inanimate Objects

It is now just over four years since I started this blog, also four years since I joined Twitter and I can't remember the date when I set up my Facebook page. All of which is NO EXCUSE whatsoever for revisiting some of the more popular blog posts. But then, when have I ever needed an excuse.
Remember this one?

A vexing week at Hedges Towers. I think I am developing Copenhagen Syndrome. Every time something goes wrong, I find myself putting on a different jumper and thinking: 'What would Sara Lund do?' The new mobile phone is a case in point. I decided to upgrade to a new phone when the B H  E and U keys died on my ancient one, and the predictive text stuck on 'I am in the bar' rather than 'I am in the car'. Wrong impressions were being conveyed, I was having to think sideways every time I sent a text and my street cred was rapidly descending into the clown zone.

What I had failed to grasp however, was that mobile phone technology has moved on considerably since I bought my little silver 'mum-phone' many moons ago, which means that currently, if you chose for so many reasons, most of them associated with sheer terror and no money, to lurk down the shallow end of the technology pool, your choices are few. Basically it was either the black Nokia one that looked almost but not exactly the same as my previous mobile, or the Hello Kitty phone with free pencil set. I chose the Nokia; I chose wrong.

Getting it out of the box was, in hindsight, the easy part. It then took me ages to unlock the keypad - simply couldn't get the 'Press *' key to align with the 'Press Unlock' key. By the time I'd mastered that, my faith in the ability to absorb new skills had melted away like snow in summer. Two days later tentative progress has been made, despite the instruction booklet not being aimed at someone with technological skills so low you couldn't limbo under them. I still haven't worked out how to switch it off, though. (Am I the only person on the planet who turns off their mobile phone to save the battery? Apparently so.)

It's all part of what I see as the Conspiracy of Inanimate Objects, something I've observed is becoming worse as I grow older. Although the truth of that sentence could lie in the reverse premise. Whatever. Everything just seems to be getting proactively more annoying. For example, I'm fully expecting Sainsburys to post a notice any day banning me from the store, because I always end up rowing with the invisible purple gremlin inside the self-checkout till in a 'That's not an unidentified object in the bagging area - it's my SHOPPING, you stupid woman!' sort of way. I've noticed that assistants now seem to hover apprehensively whenever I approach.

In the same category is the Orange phone lady who tops up my pay-as-you-go account, and will not allow me to deviate from answering either 'yes' or 'no' to her questions. But my life is full of uncertainty, I wail, how can I possibly commit myself to only two possibilities? Is there no room for 'maybe'? At which point, she cuts me off and I have to restart the whole process from scratch. See what I mean?

 Before writing this post, I had to restore and reload Chrome, as it had decided to stroll off somewhere and commune with itself. Oh ~ and the printer is currently not working, despite kicking it, feeding it with paper and pressing all the buttons. Stuff that is supposed to make my life easier is by default managing to make it far more complicated. I am careening towards a farcical cliff.
Time to break out another jumper?