techno terror [/rant]
By way of an addendum to last week for those who had seen the Battersea queues in the paper and asked where I was, the screen shot from my mapper is above (I joined over near the Peace Pagoda). And I forgot last time, but thank you again to the gentleman who drew my attention to it all in the first place – roll on next year!
I did briefly mention the communications breakdown last time (and apologies again); in a nutshell, my email and internet were switched off from my trusty BlackBerry on Thursday afternoon so that they may be switched over to the new handset I had planned to upgrade it to which was due to arrive …the following Monday, some four days later. After a not inconsiderable time spent expressing my opinion on this to O2, the WAP settings were changed back as of midnight Friday night and a full twenty four hours later on the Sunday morning when I was due to leave London, it all finally started working lovely again. Grrr.
Anyway, the upshot of all the stress, hassle and lost emails is that the BlackBerry is still the BlackBerry and safely in hand for at least another week, after it’s brand new (and above all criticism, if the phone snobs are to be believed) replacement the £600+ Sony Experia Z1 (complete with fab wifi camera attachment which, if I’m honest, was the only reason I wanted it) was delivered, proved lacking and swiftly despatched back to the returns centre before somebody, namely me, did it some serious frustration-induced damage. The fact that it didn’t work properly anyway is far less important than it’s horrific size, migraine inducing screen, pages (sorry panes) of crap icons which appeared nigh on impossible to remove (Facebook, ffs) and most importantly, it’s apparent mission to combine all the contact details of any email accounts used on it whether the owner likes it or not, a mission which may have been successful had I a: had a Google account and b: had a handset which fancied recognising the SIM card being repeatedly inserted, removed, wiped, turned around and put into it again over the course of the afternoon (it didn’t). To quote the late great Amy Winehouse, what kind of fuckery is this?
If this is the really the best that’s on offer, I’ll pass. Until somebody can direct me to a model which has a proper keyboard with keys that make clicking noises when you type, and manages to support this whilst being smaller in size than a Penguin paperback so that people whose thumbs have just the regulation number of joints are able to use it, I’m not interested and I cannot possibly be the only one. I don’t want to play games or watch TV on a telephone – I not only have a brand new laptop/tablet convertible whatsit but, maverick idea though it may seem, a television set; if I choose to spend the little free time I have boring an unsuspecting world shitless with banal, self obsessed dirge I can do that right here without any help from Twatter. Nor do I want to spend twice as much time correcting typos as I do battering clumsily at a flat, un-intuitive and completely non-clicky surface trying not to make them in the first place. Another BlackBerry, then. Phew.
Either way, all will be sorted when I get the chance to tinker with the things in an actual shop, which isn’t going to be any time for the next few days at least. As vigilant readers will have spotted, I have plenty to be getting on with for the next couple of weeks and indeed the next few months (including the Frightfest Halloween All Nighter and various other horror bits although I’ll sadly miss a few too, which will teach me to check my diary properly before making any sort of arrangements with Ryanair).
So all systems go for Carlisle tomorrow; I will be around from mid afternoon, everything is (so far) shipshape and in full working order – yay! And needless to say, you don’t have to worry about me coveting your iphone…
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