Have I betrayed my people?

Hold hard. This is not a shameful confession that I’ve been watching Star Trek. But it may well be worse. I have few principles worth shouting about. I’m too raddled with contradictions to hold strong beliefs. I seem to hate practically everyone who is in the same place as me at the same time and yet I am too soft hearted and feel sorry for people who don’t deserve pity. I am terribly cynical about virtually everything and yet am so open minded that this week alone I am doing a Boots 5-day Detox and taking the 14 day Actimel challenge. Not that I’m taking a 14 day challenge in one week. That would be both difficult and impossible. A prize to anyone who spotted that was a Fry and Laurie quote. I have a shelf of pagan books, several yoga DVDs, aromatherapy bumf, a reflexology kit and more. They are all negated by my perverse pessimism which takes a back seat to my naive optimism just long enough to buy the things and then starts telling me they won’t work on the way home.

Even my support for the Mac is tempered by the admission that the PC is so much better served for software. I couldn’t run this site without a PC to compose and upload it with. I dare say there is stuff out there for the Mac but I have yet to find something as easy for the web-cretin to use as FrontPage. Thank goodness for Adobe and their almost unique policy of releasing software with both PC and Mac versions. If more people bothered to do this, the Mac might finally take its place as the home computer of choice. Next time you’re listening to your iPod and marvelling at its beauty and simplicity, think of how nice it would be if your computer was as fab.

So what is my crime? What have I done to sell out my soul? What have I whored for the price of a cup of coffee? Ok, scrub that last one. It’s silly. Well, rest assured that it wasn’t a regrettable incident with a rumbling tummy and a Burger King. It’s not quite that awful. Close but not quite.

Drum roll.

Thank you.

Today I got a mobile phone. There – I’ve outed myself. After years of refusing the loathsomely intrusive contraptions I have finally parted with eighty of Her Majesty’s pounds and bought a Samsung C100. I dare say that means something to some of you. Aside from a quick Google search for reviews (which were all nicely positive) I know nothing of them. I bought it because I’m starting my terrifying new job on Monday and this one isn’t within walking distance of home. If the car goes, I don’t. That’s it really. But it means I have to learn to use the wretched device. I’m generally a technically minded person but this endless parade of TLAs (three letter acronyms) is confusing my mental 286.

The menus give me endless options to change my wallpaper, my greeting (whatever that is), go online using a screen the size of a Christmas stamp, change my ring tone to something hideous which is to music what scones are to street fighting. I am, I guess, picking a few things up as I go along (I’ve been playing with my landline calling back and forth, leaving voicemail and all that Cretan jazz) but it is still a minefield without an immediately obvious silver lining.

I’ve been to the Virgin mobile website. That’s not a site for people who’ve never had a phone before btw. That’s who I’m with. I saw a chart in the Argos catalogue and they seemed cheapest for making odd calls. Occasional calls I should say. That’s about how scientific I got. Young people today seem to be born with full and complete information about which network does what. I let myself be swayed by the cost of telephone calls (and, mumble, their promise to send me free text messages about Manchester United).

Sidebar, I remember hearing a report on some radio station or other (a broadsheet station not a tabloid) about how phone companies are working at replacing the typing of text messages with a voice recognition system. The presenter kindly didn’t grab the phone company expert by the throat and yell “That’s called a fucking phone call you communication rapist” and then punch him till he bled.

So do I like my new toy? To be honest I’m not all that bothered by it. The gadgets I want at the mo are a DAB radio and a Freeview decoder. The former is fairly useless as I don’t listen to the radio much and can already get the channels through the telly and the latter is pretty much entirely useless as I’ve got a full and complete ntl: package at mine and TiVo’s disposal. But I like playing with new toys. Maybe I should follow Mr Hunt’s lead and get me some Lego.

Still, at least now when I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere I need only worry about how I wished I’d remembered to charge the arsing thing.

24th January 2004