I might have done something which is going to make my life very difficult indeed.
I got very impatient with my computer this morning.
I have got two computers, three if you count my phone, which you don’t, because my fingers are too fat to write anything on its elf-sized keyboard. The phone is for squinting at when it is beeping at me and I have not found my glasses, and for jabbing at, hopefully and unsuccessfully, when I am trying to stop it dinging. It is an undeniably useful, but nevertheless frustrating and tiresome thing to own, like a heap of coat hangers.
Anyway, the two computers that count are this one, which is a flat portable affair, and with which I am talking to you now. This one is getting a bit slow and elderly, and sometimes the keyboard disappears altogether. I play a game with myself when it does that, and try and carry on writing anyway, to see if I can still do it. I am quite good at this.
The other one, and the one which has been the cause of my difficulties, is the house computer.
In my head this computer is the mainframe computer for the house. I do not know what ‘mainframe’ actually means, and have been too idle to look it up. What I mean is that it is the big master computer, governing and controlling everything with a smooth click of a mouse.
This is complete nonsense, because it does not do anything of the sort.
Over Christmas our friend Kevin told us about a thing he has got called an Alexa. You just tell this to do things and it does them for you, like switching your lights off or playing you the music that you would like to hear.
It is so good at this that it ordered him a pizza whilst he was trying to explain it to us, because he said: All I have to say is Order Me A Pizza, Alexa, And It Does, and it did.
We were, of course, intrigued by this.
I do not know how you might get a computer to switch your lights off, because ours work on switches that you have got to press up and down. I do not know in any case if I want a computer switching the lights off for me, it could lead to all sorts of discord if I were to be on the taxi rank telling the computer to switch the lights off, and Mark was having a shower, or filling the breadmaker, and suddenly found himself in the dark.
Anyway, I was inspired by this wonderful cyber-universe to re-examine our own computer usage. I thought that whilst it was unlikely that the computer would be up for putting the washing on and running a bath, it might at least be prepared to take more of an organisational role in the house.
Also I have got an unused New Year Resolution which could do with some attention.
At the moment we rely completely on the desk diary to tell us about things like dentist appointments or Parents’ Meetings. This is a large affair mounted in a handy stand in the office, and is really useful if you happen to be in the office looking at it.
Instead of this archaic device, today I thought that I would technicalise our memories.
I would enter everything from the diary on to the calendar on the computer, and then link it not only to my phone and flat computer, but also to Mark’s. We would know everything about everything, then, and neither of us could secretly blame the other one for turning up for half term on the wrong day.
How impossibly difficult could something like that be?
It should have been very smooth indeed.
I entered everything important on to the Calendar page of the computer in the office and then thought that I would share it with the rest of me, and with Mark.
What a cyber-muppet I was.
It turned out that there are three sorts of calendar on my computer. The one that I had used was a private affair to be read only by me, and then only after I had got the password right, remembered my mother’s maiden name and the name of my first pet and correctly entered an access code which would be sent to my mobile phone. Then I could access it under top secret conditions, a week after any event of my choosing.
The other two could be shared either with my Other Devices, or with Mark, but neither would do both.
The whole thing was made increasingly frustrating by the fact that my computer is now a very elderly creature, groans and grumbles about everything, and responds to any instruction by producing a little rainbow-coloured spinning wheel in the place where the arrow ought to be, as if that might help me calm my impatience.
After a little while of this, during which Mark brought me a sympathetic cup of tea and a chocolate peppermint, I got very cross indeed and rang Apple.
A very nice young man who seemed to be called NooNoo, made soothing noises and said that he would see what he could do.
He climbed inside my computer and created a little red arrow on the screen, which bobbed about and showed me what to do.
The thing was that everything was so impossibly slow that after about an hour of trying different things, he got bored and told me that he would email me an article about how to delete absolutely everything off your computer and start again from scratch.
I read most of the article, although not all because of the computer being so slow.
Then I pressed the magic button and deleted everything from the hard drive.
I had got a completely empty computer.
The thing is that it was empty of absolutely everything, from useful things like my bank account, to things that I don’t quite know what they are for, like a thing called Garage Band.
I looked at this with some anxiety.
It has gone back to its factory settings.
The factory settings were invented in 2011, which is a long time ago in the computer world.
I looked at it for a long time.
Fortunately after a little while I had to stop looking, because I had got to go and get my hair cut.
Regular readers might recall that I have been suffering from some concern in respect of this issue. Today the hairdresser had re-opened, and even had a space, probably because nobody needs their hair to look nice for parties now that it is January.
I had begun to look like a sheep which had been connected to a battery.
The lovely haircut made me look smoothed and polished again, and was a massive relief. I bounced out feeling light and re-energised, and more so because the hairdresser’s wife had very kindly offered to put me in touch with some window cleaners in Windermere.
I might be about to make progress with not one, but two New Year’s Resolutions.
I can hardly tell you how satisfying this is, and we have still hardly started January.
All I have got to do is work out how to refill my computer and then be at home when the window cleaners turn up.
Also having a haircut somehow makes me look fatter.
I might need to make a start on a third resolution quite soon.
I will do that when I have finished the Christmas chocolate.
