Temporary Luddite

From January 2014 - never finished, until now!
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My computer died!

This.  Was a tragedy.

To be fair, it had warned me that it was on its way out.  It had shown me glossy estate agent details of farms it was considering buying, put up warning signs regarding buckets it was at risk of kicking, and indicated to me that if I could pass it its slippers in order to aid it in its shuffling off of this mortal coil, it would be most grateful.

As a result of all of this, I had actually made preparations.  I know.  Extraordinaire.  I had taken it to the McHospital (iHospital?) where the Nice Doctor (McGenius?) had a look and said it was basically terminal.  We needed a brain transplant.  Where, I asked in shock, would one get such a thing?  Was it frite-fly expensive?  And complex?  The Nice Doctor, whose bedside manner was entirely charming in a very trendily geeky way, explained to the Poor Old Lady that one would get such a thing online, it wasn't very expensive, and the surgery itself was sufficiently simple that even the Poor Old Lady would be able to perform it by the simple means of waving a screwfer at the back of the MacBook until its bum fell off.

Or something.

But, further, that if this was beyond the capabilities of the POL, the Nice Doctor and his friends would probably help, if the POL came in and wept a bit, although they're not really supposed to do that kind of thing.  Helping, not weeping.  And that once the brain was in, the Nice Doctor would be able to rehabilitate it, and that it would be such a special and wonderful brain that it would "see you out".  That's a quote.  I wondered at that point whether the Nice Doctor was quite as nice as I originally thought.

Anyway.  No matter how many things I tell the computer to remember in the future, it will apparently still be alive and able to pass me my slippers when it's my turn to shuffle off this mortal coil.  Hurrah!      

All this happened JUST before Christmas (*2013).  So I ordered the replacement brain.  It was easy!  It arrived ten days earlier than advertised, while we were away for Christmas.  It arrived the next day, too, and the next, and kept arriving daily until eventually I switched my phone on and found that The Yodel Man (in an appropriately echoey way, considering his company name) had been bouncing to and fro daily, trying to deliver.  Sigh.  So I rearranged delivery for when it was meant to arrive in the first place.

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So all of that was now so long ago that I barely remember it (although my feelings on The Yodel Man have, if anything, deteriorated), and the McDoctor put the new brain in the Poor Old Lady's computer, and the POL's MacBook Pro was once more ready to ROCK!

Until the POL invited her dear friends over, and Penningtons, Milligans and Parkins did imbibe of the gin.  In generous quantities.  And not just the gin of the Gordon's and the nice Bombay Sapphire people, but the actual home-made Hedge Gin (see elsewhere on blog if you wish to *spoiler alert* hurt yourself and kill your computer) which is largely based on Asda's own brand gin.  And Hedge.  There then ensued some playing of tunes in the kitchen, just like in the olden days, all gathered around the keyboard.  Although not THAT like the olden days, given that the keyboard was operating iTunes and not a piano.  At this point, tall glasses of prosecco, with generous measures of various home-made (but not home-distilled, as That Is Against The Law) spirits such as blackberry vodka and raspberry gin, very much à la Kir Royale, but a bit more Kir Pleb, seemed an inordinately good idea.  Well, it turns out that the combination of the playing of the music with the waving of the arms, the drinking of the spirits, the quaffing of the bubbles and most especially the placing of the very tall glass next to the laptop was actually an inordinately POOR idea.

Emergency action was immediately implemented, and the drinking and waving of arms resumed (although without the music - shame).  On rising, bleary-eyed the next morning, it transpired that the emergency action, with which we had been quite pleased, on the whole, at the time) had pretty much stopped at making the laptop into a little tent shape, tipping it up and placing a whole roll of Plenty, still on the roll, in its little cavity, as if for a nice night under the stars.

Needless to say, this cost a fucking FORTUNE to sort out, and took bloody weeks on end.  Initially, it was thought that it could probably be done for a couple of 'undred, and hence no need to bother the household insurance wallahs.  But once they'd got the bonnet off, there was much sucking of teeth and "werlllll, you've got liquid innit, 'aventcher?"ing from the McChaps.  Which was an extraordinarily astute diagnosis, given that I'd taken it in and said "I tried to make it drink spirits but it didn't like it".  And RAM was discussed.  And top - er - top hampers?  No, top - er - something boards.  Not washboards.  Something though.  And something expensive, natürlich, mein lieblings.  And some other bits which also didn't take kindly to having booze forced upon them.

At this point, I told them to just go ahead and fix the bloody thing, as I live my LIFE on the computer.  I write recipes on it, blog on it (occasionally, hem hem), sell jewellery on it, do all my Zumba paperwork on it, talk to friends far and wide on it - you get the idea.

Once I'd finished weeping and breaking the news to the kids that there would be no Christmas, I realised that - tadaaaaa!  It actually wasn't going to cost a bean more than the original £200 because this is (probably) what household insurance is for!  The nice man at Direct Line was very sympathetic, and once he'd finished tutting about the fact that I'd already sorted it out when he would have liked to have had a go himself (or get some of his friends to have a look or something - presumably for further sucking of teeth and "I couldn't possibly fit it in before a week Tuesday, guv, and that's pushing it"), the cash for the repair was in the account before you'd have had time to say "hang on, where's me cheque book, has the cat eaten it?".  Mental.

It's never been quite the same, though.  It keeps telling me it wants coffee.  Specifically Java.  But then, I suppose we all fancy a coffee after a night on the prosecco and spirits, don't we?

I know I do.