Saturday, March 31, 2007

One day, I'm going to gather up my courage and say to someone that"...your wild, improvident heart" is setting me on fire. This line of Yeats stuns me everytime I run my eyes over it. Utterly sensuous. It's Carmen in four words; smouldering, the sense of the tango behind it, footstamping like the flamenco. Fabulous. I love Yeats
A few nights ago I was woken by a girl, shouting in accentless english: "Mummy, is Daddy OK ?". Unusual for the early hours to say the least. Where I live, shattered, broken sleep is usually the consequence of people fighting in the street, with everything that brings in it's slipstream: the sirens, the flashing lights, someone sobbing.

But this was the first time, I'd been woken like this. If this was what I actually heard; the more I think about it now, I suspect that random question only stayed memorable because it's survived as a rare remnant of a dream, the last memory of a good night's sleep, preserved like those insects held in amber, before being wrenched out of dreamtime by screeching, drunken voices. Real ones, sadly.

Friday, March 30, 2007

"Oh, and what does n't help is that I've given up chocolate! Been clean for four days. It's a struggle"

"So, you're hormonal then?"

"You mean weepy ?"

"Or aggressive"

"Not really. More I'm in a semi-permanent moan mode"


So, what happened? How have I ended up like this? Easily. My Doctor spoke to me the way I've only ever seen in films or flittered across on TV soaps. There we were, facing each other across the table; the pause, then the question:

"You know why I've asked you here?"

"Er..there's something, umm, not right with one of my test results?"


Doc, really it's my inner voice you should be listening to right now. It's at a higher pitch than a dog whistle: he's going to tell me... Oh my God, I don't want to punch the clock early. Silent scream!

"Your blood pressure is fine... ECG the same...Renal test no problem... Cholesterol pretty good...in fact your 'good' cholesterol is very good. Whatever you're doing there don't stop. It's the sugar test. Higher than I'd like to see it. Need to look at that. Do you eat sweets, sugary foods, chocolate, that kind of thing?"

"Chocolate? Yeah. Now and again...occasionally".

Pinocchio ! Occasionally ! I dare n't tell him how much I chomp through on a weekly basis. I'll be giving him First Aid (Nurse, Nurse, QUICK! It's the Doctor, gone green at the gills).

I don't eat it. That's too kind. Forget the I'm in control, it does n't control me thing. If only. I'm in thrall to it. It's bonded Slave is me! I'm probably the Oliver Reed or Keith Richards of Chocolate. I've been on a Cocoa Lost Weekend for years. My minimum, the absolute rock bottom consumption is two bars a day. It used to be four before I decided to go on short rations. Every day of the week, week after week, month after month. Christ, that's over fourteen hundred bars a year! What's the number of the Priory?

He does n't want to put me on medication and I sure as eggs are eggs don't want to be on any either. Therefore I strike as much sugar as I can out of my life and return in six months for a review. I'm lean and mean enough to stay clean normally, but this is Chocolate we're talking about. My Friend through thick and thin, and now cruel separation. I've gotta be brave. Tough love. Stiff upper lip and no eye contact with anything faintly reeking of cocoa dust. Just say no...but I'm not sure if I can...

It's finally caught up with me. Unimaginable.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Advocating particular brands, or recommending specific products, are n't that regular an occurrence in my life. You like what you like and let everyone else do the same, that's the core of it for me. After all, one man's meat is another man's poison and it's futile, if not actually impossible to dictate preference. We'd all be sad-faced clones if this was all that happened.

That's the rule, now here's the exception, and in a strange way I feel guilty about this, (why, I don't know properly, that's for another article), I am not able to recommend with any real confidence www.doesntalwaysworkfirsttimepc.com. They're an online, purely online, electrical retailer, strong on value - their term for "we're hard to beat on price", and carry a pretty sexy line in laptops. My trusty, battered Toshiba Satellite, a dear friend whom I've brought back from the dead time after time, is now finished. I can barely scrape enough power to keep it going for this article. It's no longer a laptop, it's become Lazarus, but it cannot keep up the thin pretence of being able to function. I gotta change it, decommission it gracefully and thank it for three years hard work. Better than a sheepdog.

I bought a new one from this company; loyal to the same family, it's another Toshiba. Stick with the tried and tested. Quite a pantomime simply getting it delivered, but it eventually arrived yesterday, a week or so late. Entirely forgiveable though when you see the beauty of it, it's the sleekest, slinkiest laptop I've ever seen, let alone run my fingers over. It's as close as it can be in my eyes to design perfection, graceful enough for the catwalks of Milan or Paris with such clearly expressed lines, and a finish as smooth as a washed pebble. Fabulous. Light and elegant, so slender it could pass off as an After Eight mint, albeit with circuitry and a hard drive. I am burning from the inside out to use it.

Everything's there, except...power. It will not start. I was a good boy when I set it up, followed the instructions meticulously - I've a track record in ripping the wrapper off, ignoring any instruction manual, thinking anything is easy to set up - not so here, been calm. Worked through the trouble shooting guide, spent thirty minutes or so on the 'phone to Toshiba's own helpline. Nothing. Not a flicker, just my face reflecting back at me from a blank, lifeless screen.

A confused delivery, then when it turns up, it's still born. I have to be candid here: I find it difficult to contain my disappointment with doesntalwaysworkfirsttimepc. I'll see how the returns and replacement process works - I'm stubborn enough to hang on a little while longer before I start shopping elsewhere. Hello PC World.....possibly

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

You can do it...You can. You know you can...Keep going....Hold that contact steady, it's just a few minutes I want. Enough time for the jack to stay in the socket and give me some juice to quickly pen something...

My laptop is near death. CD Drive gone, battery popped, can't keep a power connection longer than a couple of minutes. It's this that's dried up the blogging stream. But that's only part of it; my obstinacy, my pig-headedness, my refusal to accept that laptops can wear out - I've got this embedded Northern got-to-get-value-for-my-money trait, that's the real problem.

I patch this thing up, the virtual skin and bones it now is, and throw it back over the parapet, wheezing, coughing cyber blood, back into the fray. Then the merest knock and it's on the floor, like now. Low battery signs firing off like Roman Candles.

All the computer voodoo I know, I've tried; I've used every known imprecation, along with some yet to be classified; begged it with more feeling than a contrite husband. Nothing. It's fading before my eyes. So I bought a new one. "The laptop is dead. Long live the laptop". Er no... I muddled my address up on the online ordering form...! How...please don't ask. Enough that I did.

The revenge of the incumbent laptop. The bitten bites back...