I’ve been fighting chaos. This is what happened:
I woke up bright and early, or at least early, or earlyish. I donned by superhero attire of knickers and cape. The cape kept tangling in my knickers so I took that off. Then I didn’t feel it was appropriate to wander the house in just superhero knickers (nice as they are) as there were young men present. So I put on some superhero jeans and t-shirt. And went forth to fight chaos.
The chaos was lurking in an evil and mostly scary way in a small room we call the ‘den’. Possibly we call it this because it is where evil chaos hangs out. Or possibly we call it this because it is so small that it resembles a structure created with spare bedlinen by a child aged approximately five. In fact I have no idea why it is called ‘the den’.
So, chaos, lurking in the den. Imagine the scene if you will – a small room with a small bed and a small desk. Lurking under, over, betwixt, on, in-between, amongst, throughout, amidst and amid the small bed, desk and room is stuff. Serious amounts of stuff. A very very a lot of stuff. The sort of stuff that can only accumulate after fifteen years of putting stuff in a very small room with a desk and a bed. This is the sort of stuff that was there –
Photographs of babies, children and people one no longer recognises
Bank statements from bank accounts one probably never held
Dust
Paintings painted by small children who may or may not be one’s own children but are definitely not the children of Michelangelo
Files of hand-written college notes for qualifications one never used and therefore have forgotten and anyway the notes are totally illegible
Certificates for qualifications one never used and therefore have forgotten but now engender a brief feeling of pride at being so well qualified
Dust
Unrecognisable sticky things
Tents one has bought to go camping only it never stopped raining so the tents are still sealed in their original cellophane wrapping
More dust
Scrunched up old bedding that smells as if the cat has pissed on it
Cats pissing on scrunched up old bedding
Dusty unrecognisable sticky things
And more. Much much more. It is a miracle of space that all this stuff was in this very small room. I brought the physicist in to explain exactly how there could be more stuff in a room than the actual volume of the room. She muttered something about compression and space-time continuums and went back to her room where the amount of space and the amount of stuff actually make sense.
I took my best superhero deep breath and started. And continued. And finished only twelve hours, sixteen recycling bags, seventeen bin bags, and eleven boxes that I don’t know what the hell to do with later. I shall now have to rearrange all the other rooms in the house in order to accommodate all the very useful stuff (see above list) that I have rescued. But that’s ok because I have lots of time as I am now prisoner in my own home because I can’t get past the desk, the bed, the sixteen recycling bags, the seventeen bin bags, and the eleven boxes that I don’t know what the hell to do with that are blocking the road.
Monday 30 July 2007
Friday 27 July 2007
How Six-year-olds Know Things that Grown-Up Men Don’t
My nephew has been visiting. He is six, and wise beyond his years. He loves the physicist and daughter the younger (who henceforth shall be called the lawyer as this is her ambition and I feel it unfair that she should be referred to as daughter the younger when daughter the older gets to be called by her ambition). The nephew (as I don’t know his ambition he shall just remain the nephew until he reveals his life plan to me) wanted to play with the aforementioned professionals. This is what happened:
The nephew rose bright and early as is the wont of six-year-olds. It is one of life’s great mysteries why the very young should want to rise at six in the morning. Have they not discovered that no one else is up? That no one wants to play football, sofa-destroying, peanut butter-face smearing or extravagant nose-picking before the hour or seven? Thus the very young are left in the position of poking the not-so-very-young with footballs, sofas, peanut butter and snotty noses for hours on end before eliciting any response resembling foot-twitching, cushion launching, nut-based-product facials or nasal excrement rearranging. Why has natural selection not led to only the late-rising child surviving? Especially considering that the worst offenders of the early-rise seldom survive past the age of six since their loving parents have either killed them, or they have been taken in by social services as their parents have been driven to an early grave by lack of sleep and thus they lead a life of parentlessness which drives them to drink and drugs and an early death due to lack of sleep.
So, nephew, six o’clock, wants to play with physicist and lawyer, whom, we must remember, are teenagers. It is the other great mystery of life why teenagers are totally incapable of rising before noon. What happened to those bouncy six-year-olds who rose a good six hours earlier? And yet another great mystery of life – surely in the transition between six and teen there must have been an era of total sense, when the child rose at a decent hour? Yet, no parent can ever remember that. No child can ever remember that. The only explanation it is that getting up at a proper time, say nine, actually erases people’s memories. This technique is often used in war-time situations. Simply by allowing generals, government ministers and senior civil servants to rise at nine they fail to remember that there is a war on and therefore actually win the war by not making the stupid decisions that their early-rising enemies are making between the hours of six and nine when their small children have poked snot in their faces.
So, nephew, six o’clock, wants to play with daughters. Sets up board game on kitchen table and sits down to wait.
Nephew, three minutes past six, has run out of patience. He decides to write aforementioned daughters a note. It reads –
‘I’m waitin’ for you to come an’ play Cranium’ He writes two notes, one for each sleeping teenager. The notes are clear and concise and I am impressed by the use of apostrophes, the voice, point of view and how he can even write in his London accent.
He places the notes outside the appropriate bedrooms.
So, nephew, ten minutes past six, wants to play with daughters, and thinking that he has been waiting a very long time. He takes his pen and goes upstairs to amend the notes. They now read –
‘I’m waitin’ for you to come an’ play Cranium. You must come now!’ The exclamation mark is quite explicit. The teenagers sleep on despite the noisy use of a ball-point pen just outside their rooms. As well as the nephew reading the notes loudly out loud, thus impressing me further with his reading skills.
So, nephew, twenty past six, wants to play with daughters. Daughters sleep on oblivious to six-year-old suffering. By eight o’clock I finally take pity on the poor boy who by now has written a four thousand word treatise on how the physicist and the lawyer should really get up and play Cranium with him without further ado.
I am too kind to point out to the nephew that if he had only risen an hour earlier he could have played Cranium with the girls as they got back from town at five and probably would have been in the mood for a good board game.
‘Shall I play Cranium with you?’ I ask kindly.
‘No,’ he answers very firmly. For a moment I am upset and insulted. That is until he adds ‘because you are always right.’
It is a delight to discover that a man finally understands me. I make him several pieces of toast and offer to publish his life’s work.
The nephew rose bright and early as is the wont of six-year-olds. It is one of life’s great mysteries why the very young should want to rise at six in the morning. Have they not discovered that no one else is up? That no one wants to play football, sofa-destroying, peanut butter-face smearing or extravagant nose-picking before the hour or seven? Thus the very young are left in the position of poking the not-so-very-young with footballs, sofas, peanut butter and snotty noses for hours on end before eliciting any response resembling foot-twitching, cushion launching, nut-based-product facials or nasal excrement rearranging. Why has natural selection not led to only the late-rising child surviving? Especially considering that the worst offenders of the early-rise seldom survive past the age of six since their loving parents have either killed them, or they have been taken in by social services as their parents have been driven to an early grave by lack of sleep and thus they lead a life of parentlessness which drives them to drink and drugs and an early death due to lack of sleep.
So, nephew, six o’clock, wants to play with physicist and lawyer, whom, we must remember, are teenagers. It is the other great mystery of life why teenagers are totally incapable of rising before noon. What happened to those bouncy six-year-olds who rose a good six hours earlier? And yet another great mystery of life – surely in the transition between six and teen there must have been an era of total sense, when the child rose at a decent hour? Yet, no parent can ever remember that. No child can ever remember that. The only explanation it is that getting up at a proper time, say nine, actually erases people’s memories. This technique is often used in war-time situations. Simply by allowing generals, government ministers and senior civil servants to rise at nine they fail to remember that there is a war on and therefore actually win the war by not making the stupid decisions that their early-rising enemies are making between the hours of six and nine when their small children have poked snot in their faces.
So, nephew, six o’clock, wants to play with daughters. Sets up board game on kitchen table and sits down to wait.
Nephew, three minutes past six, has run out of patience. He decides to write aforementioned daughters a note. It reads –
‘I’m waitin’ for you to come an’ play Cranium’ He writes two notes, one for each sleeping teenager. The notes are clear and concise and I am impressed by the use of apostrophes, the voice, point of view and how he can even write in his London accent.
He places the notes outside the appropriate bedrooms.
So, nephew, ten minutes past six, wants to play with daughters, and thinking that he has been waiting a very long time. He takes his pen and goes upstairs to amend the notes. They now read –
‘I’m waitin’ for you to come an’ play Cranium. You must come now!’ The exclamation mark is quite explicit. The teenagers sleep on despite the noisy use of a ball-point pen just outside their rooms. As well as the nephew reading the notes loudly out loud, thus impressing me further with his reading skills.
So, nephew, twenty past six, wants to play with daughters. Daughters sleep on oblivious to six-year-old suffering. By eight o’clock I finally take pity on the poor boy who by now has written a four thousand word treatise on how the physicist and the lawyer should really get up and play Cranium with him without further ado.
I am too kind to point out to the nephew that if he had only risen an hour earlier he could have played Cranium with the girls as they got back from town at five and probably would have been in the mood for a good board game.
‘Shall I play Cranium with you?’ I ask kindly.
‘No,’ he answers very firmly. For a moment I am upset and insulted. That is until he adds ‘because you are always right.’
It is a delight to discover that a man finally understands me. I make him several pieces of toast and offer to publish his life’s work.
Monday 23 July 2007
How Not to Travel
I haven’t written anything here for a while. Sorry. I’ve been travelling. They say it broadens the mind. It seems more to broaden the arse. This is a small portion of what happened:
I went to Liverpool. To pretend to be intellectual. At a conference. I took the train. It was raining. Hard.
I should really have guessed when my very first of a long line of illustrious trains was held up by flooding on the line. Flooding, as we now know, can be a more serious business than a brief puddle.
But I persevered with my journey. I was determined, against all odds, to arrive and pretend to be intellectual. Nothing, not rain, nor flood, nor the hen party partying behind me, nor the lack of movement, nor the lack of air, nor the lack of any comfortable way to sit on an overcrowded overheated train was going to stop me. The hen party continued to party. I accepted the offer of a vodka and coke and a natty headband with two small pink plastic erect penises (or is the plural of penis peni?) on the end of wobbly springs. I began to feel better. I think I probably looked great and very intellectual.
I got there. I pretended. I think they were fooled. But I didn’t get home. I got stuck in Crewe. No trains were running to Cardiff. No cars, buses, bicycles, rickshaws or fake-intellectual carrying creatures or any sort. Not even a handy woodlouse with a golden carriage attached volunteered to carry me homewards. In fact the woodlouse was quite rude and told me that the golden carriage was only for people without plastic peni on their heads. Snob.
I stood outside Crewe station and rang the beloved. ‘I’m stuck in Crewe.’ He told me about Crewe’s great railway heritage and what a wonderful place it must be to be stuck in. ‘But I want to go home.’ He advised that the Crewe railway museum would be a good way to keep my mind off my homesickness. He also said that I might amuse myself by watching trainspotters. I was briefly amused by wondering if by watching people do something immensely boring one might somehow transcend boredom itself and reach a higher level of consciousness. Then I went to find a hotel.
So there I was. Alone. In the only room in the hotel that didn’t exist. The room didn’t exist. The hotel was very existing and solid and British. It was called the Crewe Railway Hotel. The beloved would have approved. Mine was room number 320. Dotted conveniently around the maze of corridors and stairs were handy signs pointing the lost trainspotters to their rooms. 320 was never mentioned. At all. There was plenty of arrows announcing the delights of 120-150, or 212-222, and climbing a narrow winding staircase announcing 310-319 I discovered those very rooms. Or at least their locked doors. By this time I was definitely in the attic. Amongst the broken furniture and store rooms. I spied the fire-escape and was on the verge of throwing myself down it in the hope of being caught by a well-upholstered trainspotter when miraculously there was a door. 320.
Upon entering the room I was delighted by the view of the railway tracks, the single bed whose headboard consisted of a small hatch leading to the underworld, and the TV which showed nothing but snow. But snow was a nice change from rain. So I watched that for a while. Then I fixed it by plugging the aerial in. And was further delighted to discover that I had eight channels. Two of which were free porn of a very amateurish and charming nature in an icky kind of way.
And thus I spent the evening. Wasting a perfectly good hotel room by being on my own. Sitting in bed, drinking Newcastle Brown (Crewe Brown being unavailable at the bar), eating minty aero balls by carefully biting them in half along the green-brown divide and licking out the bubbly bit in the middle and watching lesbian porn. The girls on the TV mostly just said ‘fuck’. I mostly just said ‘fuck’.
I went to Liverpool. To pretend to be intellectual. At a conference. I took the train. It was raining. Hard.
I should really have guessed when my very first of a long line of illustrious trains was held up by flooding on the line. Flooding, as we now know, can be a more serious business than a brief puddle.
But I persevered with my journey. I was determined, against all odds, to arrive and pretend to be intellectual. Nothing, not rain, nor flood, nor the hen party partying behind me, nor the lack of movement, nor the lack of air, nor the lack of any comfortable way to sit on an overcrowded overheated train was going to stop me. The hen party continued to party. I accepted the offer of a vodka and coke and a natty headband with two small pink plastic erect penises (or is the plural of penis peni?) on the end of wobbly springs. I began to feel better. I think I probably looked great and very intellectual.
I got there. I pretended. I think they were fooled. But I didn’t get home. I got stuck in Crewe. No trains were running to Cardiff. No cars, buses, bicycles, rickshaws or fake-intellectual carrying creatures or any sort. Not even a handy woodlouse with a golden carriage attached volunteered to carry me homewards. In fact the woodlouse was quite rude and told me that the golden carriage was only for people without plastic peni on their heads. Snob.
I stood outside Crewe station and rang the beloved. ‘I’m stuck in Crewe.’ He told me about Crewe’s great railway heritage and what a wonderful place it must be to be stuck in. ‘But I want to go home.’ He advised that the Crewe railway museum would be a good way to keep my mind off my homesickness. He also said that I might amuse myself by watching trainspotters. I was briefly amused by wondering if by watching people do something immensely boring one might somehow transcend boredom itself and reach a higher level of consciousness. Then I went to find a hotel.
So there I was. Alone. In the only room in the hotel that didn’t exist. The room didn’t exist. The hotel was very existing and solid and British. It was called the Crewe Railway Hotel. The beloved would have approved. Mine was room number 320. Dotted conveniently around the maze of corridors and stairs were handy signs pointing the lost trainspotters to their rooms. 320 was never mentioned. At all. There was plenty of arrows announcing the delights of 120-150, or 212-222, and climbing a narrow winding staircase announcing 310-319 I discovered those very rooms. Or at least their locked doors. By this time I was definitely in the attic. Amongst the broken furniture and store rooms. I spied the fire-escape and was on the verge of throwing myself down it in the hope of being caught by a well-upholstered trainspotter when miraculously there was a door. 320.
Upon entering the room I was delighted by the view of the railway tracks, the single bed whose headboard consisted of a small hatch leading to the underworld, and the TV which showed nothing but snow. But snow was a nice change from rain. So I watched that for a while. Then I fixed it by plugging the aerial in. And was further delighted to discover that I had eight channels. Two of which were free porn of a very amateurish and charming nature in an icky kind of way.
And thus I spent the evening. Wasting a perfectly good hotel room by being on my own. Sitting in bed, drinking Newcastle Brown (Crewe Brown being unavailable at the bar), eating minty aero balls by carefully biting them in half along the green-brown divide and licking out the bubbly bit in the middle and watching lesbian porn. The girls on the TV mostly just said ‘fuck’. I mostly just said ‘fuck’.
Wednesday 11 July 2007
How Not to Garden – or Tools We Have Known
The lawnmower broke. This isn’t news. It happened two years ago. But don’t worry (well why would you? It isn’t your lawn) we have overcome this problem in a multitude of ingenious ways.
This is what happened:
The lawnmower broke. Did I mention that? Yes, I can hear you asking ‘But how did the lawnmower break? What exactly was wrong with it?’ God you lot can be quite geeky can’t you? Well I’ll tell you. It was the starting handle thingy. You know, that long piece of string you have to pull in order to start the engine that turns some thing that turns the blades that cut the grass. Explanation enough? But it wasn’t actually the string per se it was a big springy thing inside that pulls the string back in. Yes, I know. Why does the string have to be pulled back in? Anyone who has ever owned such an exciting machine as a petrol lawnmower will know that they NEVER start on the first pull. If they ever did start on the first pull it would be so very exciting that the lawnmoweree would be so happy they would rush to the shops, buy champagne, drink the whole bottle sitting on the stripy deckchair next to the mower and by this time of course the mower will have stopped. Therefore the string would have to be pulled again. So technically you still wouldn’t be actually mowing after the first pull.
So, the spring. The lawnmower part, not the season, although actually it was spring.
‘I can fix that!’ I say to the beloved in a confident manner engendered by years of experience in dismantling machinery. Remantling machinery I’m not so good at but this has no effect on my self-assurance.
I weald my handy screwdriver. The spring, which transpires to be a very long piece of metal strip wound in a tight coil (you wanted to know that didn’t you?), leaps out, uncoils itself with a resounding ‘ping whiz ziggle ziggle’ decapitating several plants, giving the cat a long-needed tail trim and neatly scything the surrounding grass. So lawnmower not quite totally incapable of grass cutting even it its disabled state.
‘Ah!’ I say. Having discovered the nub of the problem. ‘The spring appears to be unsprung.’ I then spend many amusing and dangerous hours trying to recoil the spring and insert it neatly back into its casing. However just as I press the last portion home it leaps out again with a resounding ‘ping whiz ziggle ziggle’ decapitating several plants, giving the cat a long-needed tail trim and neatly scything the surrounding grass. I have the sense and phenomenal ingeniousity to keep moving around the lawn such that each ziggle cuts a new section. I don’t however have the sense and phenomenal ingeniousity to actually fix the bloody thing. Eventually I admit defeat.
‘You will have to take it to the lawnmower repair man,’ I inform the beloved. But sadly the beloved is a busy man so he doesn’t. Nor do I.
Still, it’s near the end of the year and maybe the lawn won’t need mowing again. But it does. So the beloved, being a man of many resources, decides that since the lawnmower shop is a long way away (a whole half and hour drive) perhaps a cheap strimmer will do the trick. After all it was only £12.99 and surely a lawn doesn’t really need a mower.
And so I strimmed. It had its appeal. Mostly the appeal was that it sort of cut the grass. And sort of mangled the grass. Really what it did was make dreadlock grass. Which has its appeal.
That was last year. The dreadlock grass grew under our feet.
Then it was this year. The lawn grew. The lawnmower was broken. The lawnmower shop is still half and hour’s drive away. The strimmer found itself incapable of any more strimming as dreadlocks were hard to cut and, as it transpired, the strimmer was a Rastafarian and actually refused to do any dreadlock cutting on moral and religious grounds. Fair enough. I have released the strimmer into the wild to go find its fortune and homeland.
A quick aside – I have emailed B&Q and commended them on their multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious garden tool policy. Go them.
So - dreadlock grass. The lawnmower was broken. The lawnmower shop still half and hour’s drive away. The strimmer gone to pastures new. But don’t worry. The beloved had a solution. The garden shears.
Hours and hours he spent on his hands and knees shearing the garden. The lawnmower shop is still half and hour’s drive away.
This is what happened:
The lawnmower broke. Did I mention that? Yes, I can hear you asking ‘But how did the lawnmower break? What exactly was wrong with it?’ God you lot can be quite geeky can’t you? Well I’ll tell you. It was the starting handle thingy. You know, that long piece of string you have to pull in order to start the engine that turns some thing that turns the blades that cut the grass. Explanation enough? But it wasn’t actually the string per se it was a big springy thing inside that pulls the string back in. Yes, I know. Why does the string have to be pulled back in? Anyone who has ever owned such an exciting machine as a petrol lawnmower will know that they NEVER start on the first pull. If they ever did start on the first pull it would be so very exciting that the lawnmoweree would be so happy they would rush to the shops, buy champagne, drink the whole bottle sitting on the stripy deckchair next to the mower and by this time of course the mower will have stopped. Therefore the string would have to be pulled again. So technically you still wouldn’t be actually mowing after the first pull.
So, the spring. The lawnmower part, not the season, although actually it was spring.
‘I can fix that!’ I say to the beloved in a confident manner engendered by years of experience in dismantling machinery. Remantling machinery I’m not so good at but this has no effect on my self-assurance.
I weald my handy screwdriver. The spring, which transpires to be a very long piece of metal strip wound in a tight coil (you wanted to know that didn’t you?), leaps out, uncoils itself with a resounding ‘ping whiz ziggle ziggle’ decapitating several plants, giving the cat a long-needed tail trim and neatly scything the surrounding grass. So lawnmower not quite totally incapable of grass cutting even it its disabled state.
‘Ah!’ I say. Having discovered the nub of the problem. ‘The spring appears to be unsprung.’ I then spend many amusing and dangerous hours trying to recoil the spring and insert it neatly back into its casing. However just as I press the last portion home it leaps out again with a resounding ‘ping whiz ziggle ziggle’ decapitating several plants, giving the cat a long-needed tail trim and neatly scything the surrounding grass. I have the sense and phenomenal ingeniousity to keep moving around the lawn such that each ziggle cuts a new section. I don’t however have the sense and phenomenal ingeniousity to actually fix the bloody thing. Eventually I admit defeat.
‘You will have to take it to the lawnmower repair man,’ I inform the beloved. But sadly the beloved is a busy man so he doesn’t. Nor do I.
Still, it’s near the end of the year and maybe the lawn won’t need mowing again. But it does. So the beloved, being a man of many resources, decides that since the lawnmower shop is a long way away (a whole half and hour drive) perhaps a cheap strimmer will do the trick. After all it was only £12.99 and surely a lawn doesn’t really need a mower.
And so I strimmed. It had its appeal. Mostly the appeal was that it sort of cut the grass. And sort of mangled the grass. Really what it did was make dreadlock grass. Which has its appeal.
That was last year. The dreadlock grass grew under our feet.
Then it was this year. The lawn grew. The lawnmower was broken. The lawnmower shop is still half and hour’s drive away. The strimmer found itself incapable of any more strimming as dreadlocks were hard to cut and, as it transpired, the strimmer was a Rastafarian and actually refused to do any dreadlock cutting on moral and religious grounds. Fair enough. I have released the strimmer into the wild to go find its fortune and homeland.
A quick aside – I have emailed B&Q and commended them on their multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious garden tool policy. Go them.
So - dreadlock grass. The lawnmower was broken. The lawnmower shop still half and hour’s drive away. The strimmer gone to pastures new. But don’t worry. The beloved had a solution. The garden shears.
Hours and hours he spent on his hands and knees shearing the garden. The lawnmower shop is still half and hour’s drive away.
Sunday 1 July 2007
How to Choose a New Computer
I’ve been to PC World. It is a secret why I went, let it just be said that someone’s birthday is soon. And it isn’t the cat’s. So don’t tell daughter the younger any of the following. This is what happened:
A great deal of people were standing bemusedly in front of computers. Trying to decide which one to buy. Luckily the aforementioned computer emporium had a display beneath each computer to enlighten the customer. Or not.
Computers, as you may well have noticed, have a great deal of mysterious attributes that are seldom explained in layperson terms. This is probably my opportunity to do so. So I will do so:
Operating System – essentially the belief system for the machine. Most computers are agnostics. They are waiting for indisputable evidence before they will believe in a god. This is diametrically opposed to most computer users who are forced by believe in a god because prayer has been proven the most effective method of computer management.
Computer Processor- like any other processor really. For example a food processor – you put perfectly good food in and mush comes out. Or a person – you put perfectly good food in and shit comes out. In the case of a computer you put perfectly good food in and nothing comes out. Constipation is common complaint of computers.
Hard Drive – strangely this is another word for memory. They called it that when they couldn’t remember the word for memory. That’s why it’s hard. The drive bit was simply an afterthought to make is sound sexy and a bit like a car. Specifically the sort of memory computer geeks have, you know, that remembers facts and figures and very little of interest unless you actually put something interesting in. Then you can seldom find it. This is where RAM comes in to play
RAM – the sort of memory that works things out. So not like memory at all. Although it does stand for Random Access Memory. It’s the word Random that is important. RAM is like real human memory. You try and remember where you have left your car keys and end up remembering obscure bits of poetry from the latter half of the sixteenth century.
USB – Universal Series Bus is what it stands for. No, not even I, understand what the hell that is. The closest one might guess at is that it was named after an incident where a double decker met quantum physics several times. In fact it is just a thingy that you put in a slot. There are more terms for this particular activity than any other known to humankind and I feel USB is really one of the worst.
Monitor – the bit you look at. But we all know it’s really the bit that looks at you. The only computer part that was named after what it actually does.
So, people in PC World. Looking at computers. Trying to decide which one to buy. They run their fingers slowly over the helpful labels and try and think profoundly about RAM and USBs and the meaning of the universe. This boggles their brains but they try not to looked boggled as then surely they would not be deserving of a brand new computer if they can’t even grasp the basics. Well of course they can’t. Because I hadn’t yet written the above useful information. So what do they do? Lacking in a time machine to bring them forward to this blog that would make everything clear (the time machines are in the store next door in a different multiverse) they are forced to judge the computer on other criteria. Here are the criteria they appeared to be using-
How many times they can randomly press keys before getting bored
Smell
If their toddler was about to have a tantrum
Colour
Whether or not touching the computer sets off the security alarms
Feel
How many times they could randomly click the mouse before getting bored
How many pretty lights it had
Whether the desktop was a sunset or a picture of a dog with a very unlikely hat (the latter seemed more popular)
Taste
Finally, after much deliberation, slapping of screaming toddlers, setting off of alarms and nibbling cables they choose the computer of their dreams. Hooray. Clutching their credit cards they then set off to find a charming salesperson to deal with their request. Several hours later they leave the store running. It seems that the only way to get a computer out of PC World was to steal one.
A great deal of people were standing bemusedly in front of computers. Trying to decide which one to buy. Luckily the aforementioned computer emporium had a display beneath each computer to enlighten the customer. Or not.
Computers, as you may well have noticed, have a great deal of mysterious attributes that are seldom explained in layperson terms. This is probably my opportunity to do so. So I will do so:
Operating System – essentially the belief system for the machine. Most computers are agnostics. They are waiting for indisputable evidence before they will believe in a god. This is diametrically opposed to most computer users who are forced by believe in a god because prayer has been proven the most effective method of computer management.
Computer Processor- like any other processor really. For example a food processor – you put perfectly good food in and mush comes out. Or a person – you put perfectly good food in and shit comes out. In the case of a computer you put perfectly good food in and nothing comes out. Constipation is common complaint of computers.
Hard Drive – strangely this is another word for memory. They called it that when they couldn’t remember the word for memory. That’s why it’s hard. The drive bit was simply an afterthought to make is sound sexy and a bit like a car. Specifically the sort of memory computer geeks have, you know, that remembers facts and figures and very little of interest unless you actually put something interesting in. Then you can seldom find it. This is where RAM comes in to play
RAM – the sort of memory that works things out. So not like memory at all. Although it does stand for Random Access Memory. It’s the word Random that is important. RAM is like real human memory. You try and remember where you have left your car keys and end up remembering obscure bits of poetry from the latter half of the sixteenth century.
USB – Universal Series Bus is what it stands for. No, not even I, understand what the hell that is. The closest one might guess at is that it was named after an incident where a double decker met quantum physics several times. In fact it is just a thingy that you put in a slot. There are more terms for this particular activity than any other known to humankind and I feel USB is really one of the worst.
Monitor – the bit you look at. But we all know it’s really the bit that looks at you. The only computer part that was named after what it actually does.
So, people in PC World. Looking at computers. Trying to decide which one to buy. They run their fingers slowly over the helpful labels and try and think profoundly about RAM and USBs and the meaning of the universe. This boggles their brains but they try not to looked boggled as then surely they would not be deserving of a brand new computer if they can’t even grasp the basics. Well of course they can’t. Because I hadn’t yet written the above useful information. So what do they do? Lacking in a time machine to bring them forward to this blog that would make everything clear (the time machines are in the store next door in a different multiverse) they are forced to judge the computer on other criteria. Here are the criteria they appeared to be using-
How many times they can randomly press keys before getting bored
Smell
If their toddler was about to have a tantrum
Colour
Whether or not touching the computer sets off the security alarms
Feel
How many times they could randomly click the mouse before getting bored
How many pretty lights it had
Whether the desktop was a sunset or a picture of a dog with a very unlikely hat (the latter seemed more popular)
Taste
Finally, after much deliberation, slapping of screaming toddlers, setting off of alarms and nibbling cables they choose the computer of their dreams. Hooray. Clutching their credit cards they then set off to find a charming salesperson to deal with their request. Several hours later they leave the store running. It seems that the only way to get a computer out of PC World was to steal one.
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