Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…..

As I sit here in the dark with naught but the glow of various monitors to currently keep me company, whilst back on the nightwatch tending to the ill of the parish, I have been considering that which is my recently hectic schedule and wishing greatly it were not thus .

Within this small slice of time I have had time to reflect that it was almost a year ago to the month that I was privy to a week spent dwelling in the company of strangers. That the strangers were in France and, for the most part, French makes no never mind to me but it does play a small part in that which is to follow. I shall elucidate….

I had agreed a while before, after much badgering from my other half, to attend the wedding of a couple she had known for many a year but who were utter strangers to me. So far, so blah blah blah. Nothing unusual there, I know. It happens to the best of us all at some point to be counted in the numbers to attend such formal affairs. It is the way of things, I concede, but I am never greatly pleased by these calls on my time.

I am not by nature very keen on the attendance of these things when they are arranged by my own family. I am sure as hell not getting any more excited about being summoned to attend the various hatches, matches and dispatches of people that I hardly, if at all, know purely based on the fact that I am the ‘plus one’ in the deal.

A touch grumpy, I will admit. Not one of my more endearing qualities but there we are. As Popeye said, ‘I yam what I yam’.

Any how, the crux of the matter was that I had reluctantly agreed to this attendance. The larger issue was that it was to be held in the South of France. Amongst French people. French people whom I had never clapped eyes upon afore. French people who, as far as I was aware, spoke no English.

Oh joy be mine….

Before it be said to me, I personally have nothing against the French in the least. I am not afflicted by the tendency of others in the UK who have an ingrained distrust and general dislike of all things Gallic. I have actually always liked France and the French. Every time I have been there I have had un grand temps altogether.

No, the trouble I foresaw was that I had not been to France for many a long year and my command of the lingua franca as a working, living, spoken tongue was all but forgotten. I don’t like doing small talk in my own chosen tongue with strangers. How to get around this as the only paddy in the village, then?

The solution was as timeless as it was simple, really. Alcohol. Lots and lots of lovely alcohol! Well, it was a wedding after all. I won’t bore with the details but, suffice to say, that once this concept was grasped and embraced, the whole affaire was a grand success and everyone had a whale of a time all round.

Which leads me back to my reverie and thinking that I could do with a top-up on my on-going education in spoken French.

Well, it would be rude not to reinforce the entente, n’est-ce pas?

As they say in another French(ish) speaking part of the world; Laissez les bon temps rouler…..!!

That’s why they call me Mr Fahrenheit…….

In light of the recent events in the shining new edifice that is Terminal Five at Heathrow I saw this ad and, oddly enough,  found a compelling connection.

Plus it just plain makes me laugh.

If you flew into T5 within the last week you have my sympathies but you might just spot your luggage careening down the runway here at a breakneck speed…..

  

The start of a beautiful electronic relationship…..

Well, this may not come across as the most inspiring prose one has ever clapped one’s peepers on but, to be fair to me, this is my first foray into the wondrous world that is blogging.

You will, I am afraid, have to suspend your disbelief a little further than would be normally prudent in order to actually gain something from this exercise.  It’s that or you could always bog off and check out something more interesting until I have begun to crack this writing for the masses lark! I am not sure that a great deal of introspection is either needed or even healthy as to the general reasonings for embarking on one of these as a venture. 

I am still trying to work out why, after years of computer ownership and internet access, I have decided to take the plunge into the great unknown. The Lord knows that there are enough people out there doing things way more interesting things than I. I would hazard a guess by stating that I am plain up-and-down curious to see where this is gonna take me and (who knows?) some of you….. 

So, what time is it? Damn, it’s nearly 5 in the bloody morning! What in the name of all that is holy am I doing up at this ungodly hour? I know that I do nights and all but not tonight so I can’t figure quite why I am up waiting for the day to come upon us all again. I am off-duty from the land of the rich’n'ill at the moment, where I earn my daily crust, so I should be getting all the rest known to man……..and yet I don’t seem to feel the need to be deeply into the land of nod under the old Kingsize duvet.  I know that Herself has taken my side of the bed and all but, right now, she can have it….

So what is the cause of this insomnia? Simple.  I have a new gadget love in my life. I fell, dear reader, and I fell heavy. Dear God, I left a crater…..

I resigned myself to a healthy expenditure after my last laptop recently decided that he didn’t want to play with me anymore! Quite why, I am not sure. I was always good to him for the last year that I had owned it. I even took him on holiday! Ungrateful swine!

So now he sits in the corner smug and unused. The trouble is that I do actually really need a computer that will not actually have a self-induced crisis of faith in themselves and will actually, you know, work when it is asked to without freezing up into a 4 kilo fucking paperweight just at the point when you are about to save the work you have been slaving over for the last four fucking hours!!  

Yes, I know. I am bitter. Sue me. C’mon, who hasn’t been there and has seriously contemplated buying a cat just so you can kick it at this point in your personal meltdown, cursing the Lords of Intel, Microsoft and Third Party Providers unto their fourth generation!  

Finally, I decided I had enough with the whole damn thing but I knew that I was going to have to commit to the whole ‘buy-a-high-end-electronic-doodad-in-order-to-keep-in-touch-and-get-shit-done-on-a-daily-basis’ thing. Well, you do, don’t you?  At what point did we decide that we could not function without our computers? I am just as guilty as anyone – more so, I will wager. I love gadgets and no-one I know runs out quicker to upgrade than yours truly. If it shines and beeps and does cool stuff (no, not stuff, fool! It has a multitude of functions is what it has!) then count me in. I will have it, mate! 

So, after cursing continuously for about two days without fail, I decided to buy a new laptop.

But this time I  was not to be swayed with the blandishments that the Lord of Vexation (that’s Bill Gates to you and me!) continues to peddle to the Great Unwashed!

Not for me, say I. You have had me more than once and it stops now! Fool me once blah, blah, blah! You know the rest… 

No, this time, I decided to go down the Mac path. Two fingers up to all at Camp Vista et al!! I was going to buy  a grown up pooter. I gots me a MacBook Pro. Hurrah! 

 

Cutting the shopping story short (who wants to know about the excursion to the Regents Street Apple shop? Honestly! I went in, I asked, I got – job done!) I got home and for once I got exactly what I was promised……..

…..I opened the box and the (beautiful – yes, I said it, beautiful) MacBook Pro I just paid a king’s ransom for switched on and worked. It didn’t ask for my personal feelings, deep-seated personal anxieties, inside leg measurement or political affiliations. It went straight to the interweb, said howya and just got the hell on with it. What a fecking relief!! 

This NEVER happens to me. There is ALWAYS something wrong or missing or wrong or corrupted or just wrong! Did I say that already? I was suitably impressed but still waiting for something to go horribly wrong. Well, it is bound to ‘cos I just paid out a heaving shitload of cash, right?  

Well, no. Not right. It seems that finally I bought something that does exactly what it says on the tin (figuratively speaking, of course. It did come in a box after all).

Who knew….?

That was about a week ago and the whole ‘wincing-when-they-asked-for-my-pin-number’ still looms large in my night terrors! That being said, I am having a blast working with my pretty new laptop. I am still working out the whole Mac interface thing seeing as how I have been weaned on the Windows Way thus I keep going to the wrong corner to close and such. I will learn, however…..

I will, I tell ya! Know why? ‘Cos it is just so much fun!! That and the bloody thing has not frozen, stopped or told me to bugger off once in the whole time I have been on this thing……..and the Lord knows I have been on this pretty much 24/bloody 7!!  For goodness sake, I am losing sleep over here! 

So, I think that this could be the start of something really special. Me and my new, shiny, brushed aluminium, sleek, sexy wee crackbook will be seen out and about in a coffeeshop near you very soon……

Can’t fecking wait…..