Poof!

I have not had a good weekend with technology. First, the blogspot, so gaily named, had it in for me. It has been unhelpful for some time, refusing to accept corrections to my blog, so every time I make a tiny mistake I have to start all over again from the beginning. This is quite annoying not least because your average dimwit would sit down and work out what was wrong but no, I have to put up with it for weeks and weeks because I AM TOO ANGRY TO TRY AND FIX IT BECAUSE I KNOW I WON’T BE ABLE TO AND THAT WILL MAKE ME MORE ANGRY. I hate computers.

This weekend Mr Blogspot Esq would not save my blog at all, so being a patient philosophical kind of guy I carried out the remedial action required which was to press all the same buttons millions of times accompanied each time with fouler and fouler expletives, ultimately concluding ‘right that’s it I won’t do the sodding blog any more’. Of course, there was a simple explanation: I’d forgotten to post the blog on a day with ‘u’ in it, so the next day it worked - I’ll know for next time.

None of this was helped by Josie slopping lemonade over the keyboard so the keys stuck down and had to be yanked up as soon as they were pressed, otherwise your script would look like tttttttthhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssss. ‘I cleaned it all up’ she said ‘but I need to focus on my revision now’. The only method that really shifted the lemonade was licking the keyboard then sucking hard – remember the tip!

And the mouse was on a go slow. So I’m sat there going click, click, CLICK DAMN YOU but nothing happens because the mouse is still hovering over the icon you aimed it at half an hour ago. I’m swishing to the right, swishing to the left, shaking it all about, tap tap, and then smashing it on the table with a force not suitable for delicate electronic instruments. How was I to know Alan would tiptoe into the room? ‘Banging it on the table isn’t going to help’ he said, flinching, but he agreed to take a look (not straight away – after he’d got dressed, and read a bit on the toilet). ‘There’s often a simple solution to these problems’ he said, after examination, holding the mouse up (‘Exhibit A’) and looking at me as he said ‘simple.’ ‘There is a speck of dust in the hole on the underside of the mouse (pointing to the hole ‘Dust in the hole’ I repeated after him). ‘It just needs a quick blow – poof!’ he said, blowing it so I knew what he meant, ‘and it’s right as rain!’ He straightened his tie and smiled at himself in the mirror (one helluvaguy) and marched off to work, leaving me and the kids blowing – Poof! Poof! Poof! – at the hole on the underside of the mouse, which had stopped working again.

At least we’ve said goodbye and good riddance to our craptop whose mischievous side drove us all nuts closing down randomly mid-Tesco shop, but refusing to close down when actually instructed, unless we pulled the plug out the socket and waited for two days. Monitoring the use of just the remaining computer has been a piece of cake, but it was too good to last; there was a knock at the door this week and a snazzy new laptop joined the family! According to Alan Grant we need it to reduce pressure on computer 1, so he can do his work emails (check the football scores on the hour) and I can get busy after school swatting children off two computers, wading through thickets of lies, deciphering who really does need the computer for homework, who is entitled to use it for relaxation because they worked so hard all day they’ve completely forgotten what lessons they had, and who is entitled because I promised them they could for eating a small lettuce leaf. Great!

Oops!

Alan has taken my advice – plan ahead! prioritise! – and wrapped it up in a super little management mantra: ‘Fail to plan - plan to fail!’ (uh huh!), which he recites to me with the zeal of the reformed whenever we run out of milk.

I’ll give you planning, I thought. So today, I decided to print all my ice-cream labels for the Christmas season in advance. But the computer had other ideas: ‘Oops - you don’t appear to be connected!’ it said. I chortled a little to be polite, and my fingers started trembling. By the time I’d exhausted my self-help checklist (switch off switch on/stare at the screen and cry/whack the keyboard hard) it was time to text Alan ‘THREE COMPUTERS NO INTERNET’ (no pleasantries) but he must have had something trivial on like a deadline so it was back to the computer for round two. I was down in one - the computer was now so infected, it was DEAD - my ice-cream labels were probably being virally annihilated right now!!

I hurtled downstairs and threw myself at another computer: ‘Oops – you don’t appear to be connected!’ It was getting funnier all the time. At least this computer was still allowing word processing (for how long ??) so I began making all the labels again, quick, heart thumping, but the lettering came out all grey! DELETE! DELTE!! DELETE!!! ‘GO AWAY YOU GREY STUFF!!’ I shouted. I texted Alan ‘WORDS ALL GREY EMERGENCY!’

Then the doorbell rang and it was the plumber about our stinky loo.

I hoped he hadn’t heard me shouting at the computer and showed him to the offending toilet, at which point we both started breathing through our mouths. Could he find the leak please, said I? His investigations concluded that somebody had had ‘a little accident’ (‘no offence, Madam, do you have sons?’) and urine had collected on the floor around the base of the toilet.…the cure was disinfectant (ie clean it). Feeling like a clot I forced a laugh as I handed over £45, but boy was this plumber thorough! Just to be sure, we were going to do a ‘controlled experiment’ (scientific!) which was to flush flush flush (that was my job!) but not use the loo (finger-wag) and keep an eye out for ‘fresh moisture’. No fresh moisture - no leak! Brilliant! No sooner had he gone than I was wrapped around the toilet, sniff-sniff-sniff, wipe-wipe, flush-flush, noting with mixed feelings that I was better equipped for solving problems involving urine than software.

That was the successful part of the day. Toilet ‘fixed’ (we won’t tell Alan the full story), it was time for self-improvement, a two-part affair: first, try to switch the TV on, second, watch the news. I retrieved handfuls of remotes from their storage locations on the floor and worked through them all press point press point press point (which was cheating) until one of them switched on our snazzy digital flat screen TV, Alan’s pride and joy, which boasts fantastic picture quality and advanced facilities such as moving pictures on the first Wednesday of the month, but otherwise offers a random light show with sporadic commentary, the missing clauses probably nestling in the underworld somewhere with my labels…MY LABELS!!

I swooned to hear the key in the door. Alan had barely got his coat off and I had him by the scruff of the neck, pushed him towards the computer screen and hissed in his ear ‘Look at it! Look at the stupid thing! The writing’s all grey!’ He did a little lateral thinking, and, with infuriating calm, downloaded the evasive ice-cream labels onto a memory stick from the dead computer (‘it was dead, completely dead!’) during some viral remission advertised exclusively to people who already know what they’re doing. He gave me the memory stick. ‘All sorted – and you should have a back up, anyway: fail to plan – plan to fail!’

Electronically Challenged

Alfie's Play Station Portable (PSP) wasn't working - this was really serious. I did all the usual checks: on off on off, bang it on the table; nothing. ‘Where’s Daddy?’ he whispered.

A cacophony of shrieking had me charging to the front room where the other three were sprawled, taking a well-earned rest from breakfast. ‘The telly’s gone blank!’ they cried, gutted it was only me. 'We need Daddy!' I chose one of the seventeen units which Alan keeps lined up to show what he’s achieved in life, and started pushing buttons, giving a pretty mean impersonation of someone who knows how to switch the TV on. ‘WRONG UNIT! GOD MUMMY! WHERE’S DADDY?’

I'll admit to being slightly electronically challenged; but if I spent as many hours as my children fiddling around with handsets and remotes, I'd be a genius at it too! I assume. Instead, my time is spent doing more constructive things like...cleaning up, and...putting things away...

I went back where I belonged in the kitchen to do something better suited to my skill set: School bags! The girls were too busy face-booking the previous night to lift their lunch boxes out of their schoolbags, so I’m in there, down amongst the mobiles and screwed up homework sheets, when I skewer a lump of slush, which turns out to be a kiwi, with my finger. Aaaaargh. I was starting to mumble and grunt 'Lazy pigs...take me for granted...'

I needed to get out before I really started ranting, so bagged a plum job: take Bonnie and chum to Brownie Sleepover, point being it was a half hour drive, return trip child-free, Radio 4 hello! I spun a yarn about how Bonnie was going to miss me, ha ha, so I needed to go to say goodbye, and set off with the girls. Alan programmed the satnav for me because I haven't learnt to do it yet, hmmm, and he's hidden the good old map book somewhere it won't embarrass him.

As soon as we set off, I discovered that the children had hilariously programmed the satnav to german. Still, I managed to follow the arrows on the liquid crystal display (rather cleverly I thought) to the finishing post, except it was a Ladbrookes, not the gothic mansion we’d envisaged ('Northern Heights')peeping through the dark forests of yore. I tried to re-programme the German guy who came up with a whole new set of flow diagramz easily detzipherable if you’d recently revized your metaphysicz, but offering simple folk like me nothing remotely comprehensible, like ‘get me to Northern Heights half an hour ago, cleverdick’. We were back at Ladbrookes, and the punters there were useless at directions too - because they all use satnav! A chant of ‘Late! Late! Late!’ from the back seat kept my blood pressure in the danger zone as I PUNCHED in the post code another 15 times, hoping Mr G would come up with something new before lights out in the dorm.

Eventually Mr G got it (oh that WD6 3RG!) and we screeched to a halt at the correct venue, where the entire Brownie pack were waiting for us to arrive so they could start the jolly japes. I ripped the satnav out; I could still get my Radio 4 moment on the return journey. But guess what, Mr G wouldn't switch off, and directed me all ze way home. 'Where's Daddy?' I said, when I got there. 'I want that map book back in the car!'