I HATE TECHNOLOGY, continued

 

This is going to be a long series.

I was already risking a lot of bad language, despite having given myself a Severe Talking To, after the post about SNOW in southern England in March, to the general impact of, I will not crush every blog post with a superabundance of CAPITAL LETTERS, italic and bold, nor will I drown every paragraph with EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!  I will learn to be calm, calm, calm, CALM!!!!!!!*

So I was risking serious off-the-rails-ness by my choice of next blog topic, which was to be entitled Learning Curve, because I was going to figure out how to post a photo, specifically of the hellpair, gloriously taken on Pooka II.**  But the thing about photos is that they’re worth a thousand words per, right?  Whereupon you don’t have to write them.  And while I have no intention of getting sucked back into a blog post every night, still, and especially while I’m still trying to rouse this new beast into robust*** life&, I don’t want too many days going by between posts.

AS IT HAPPENS this week was always going to be kind of a monster&& because Raphael has been trying to finish this ghastly migration business when he hauls my electronic/on line/digital life/lives from an assortment of FLAMINGLY INCOMPETENT servers and plonks me down into . . . well, I’m sure it’ll turn out to be flamingly incompetent too in its own way and time, but in the first place there is only one of it, which makes a change, and second IT’S ALL RAPHAEL’S PROBLEM.&&&

But that doesn’t mean that the process is going according to plan.%  Plus before the migration thing ever got scheduled I had two, count ’em, two concerts this week, yesterday and today, which was still going to be more or less all right because Raphael was coming on Tuesday . . . and then he had a drop-everything emergency so he came on Wednesday.  Yesterday.  Day of first concert.  And Fiona and I got back later than planned last night because the frelling road home was closed and her satnav had a nervous breakdown.%%  She then made the mistake of coming indoors for a sit-down that wasn’t in a car . . . and was treated to a magnificent, many-splendoured meltdown%%% when I discovered that the migration had migrated away from here and was doubtless sitting on a beach somewhere drinking swirly colourful things out of beautiful frosty glasses with paper parasols ARRRRRRRRRRRGH.$

I spent a lot of time on the phone with Raphael today.

And then there was the second concert tonight$$.  And the frelling road home was CLOSED AGAIN.$$$

But I was GOING TO POST TONIGHT since I didn’t do it last night.  And I have this photo of the hellpair . . . which with vast, agonising effort I managed, first, to send from Pooka to Outlook since I have no idea how to tell Pooka to send to the blog, and then with truly heroic vast, agonising effort I managed to transfer the photo out of my email to a brand-new folder!!!!!!, on the desktop, which I more or less remembered from the old blog I’d be able to access from the ‘new post’ page.

I went there.  I hit ‘add media’.  I hit ‘select files’.  I hit ‘hellpair.’  I hit ‘upload’.

AND IT SAID, THIS TYPE OF FILE IS FORBIDDEN FOR SECURITY REASONS.

* * *

* Heaven knows I’m old^ enough.

^ Stop that.

STOP THAT.#

# Snarlsnarlsnarlsnarlsnarl!!!!!!

** They’re right about selfies, by the way—the hypesters, I mean.  I don’t know when this (r)evolution in applied horror began but I can tell you that the iPhone X takes magnificent selfies.  AAAAAAAAAAAUGH.  I am aware that, along with the list of books by erm erm erm ahem I need to paste memorably and flamboyantly and soon all over the blog’s opening page^ I should also provide a photo of the perpetrator, and it would be easier, simpler and cheaper^^ if I could do this at home.  Well, it still will be easier, simpler and cheaper, but it’s not going to be soon.  My delete-button finger is developing a callus.

^ Read this blog!  I am a PROFESSIONAL WRITER!  Never mind that this blog exposes me as a cranky technophobic halfwit who overuses all available media for EMPHASIS!

^^ Aside from the price of Pooka II herself

*** A word that is rapidly losing its meaning because of the way British politicians throw it around.  You know that when Theresa May says ‘the government will mount a robust response’ that’s not what she means.  The word deserves better.  So does the government, come to that.

& Robust and snarling life.

&& Even aside from the weather.  Most of which has melted, by the way, the snow, I mean, around here.  There are still remains of snowpersons and gleams of snowbanks from dark shadows.  But the March That Was isn’t over yet, as any of you living almost anywhere in the right-hand two-thirds of the USA^ are well aware of.  New York City was closed yesterday, Boston is closed today and the Midwest isn’t happy either.  I had an East-Coast friend due here tomorrow and her flight was cancelled.  I think the airport was cancelled.  They’re going to turn it into a Walmart with an eight-screen cinema and a drive-through McDonald’s.

^ And possibly the Pacific Northwest, where it isn’t supposed to snow any more than it is in southern England.

&&& When Blogmom and Raphael/Blogdad were trying to parcel out the misery between them there was a lot more room for incompetence to build momentum.  IT’S GOING TO BE DIFFERENT NOW.^

^ I hope Blogdad does not develop the habit of reading Days in the Life posts.  I want him to sleep at night.

THEY’RE GETTING A PUPPY.  SOON.   YAAAAAAAAAAY.  Speaking of sleep, though.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Well, they’ve survived three human babies.  They’ll cope with a puppy.

% Starting with giving myself tendonitis doing an epic clear-out of email so as to have less to migrate.  Ow.  Furthermore the hellterror goes on the right—my group-delete hand.^  So you’ve got a hand that doesn’t close and an elbow that doesn’t bend and a thirty-pound heat-seeking missile on the end of a long extending lead and . . .

^ Deleting a few selfies is easy.

%% This is not the same satnav that brought us to a sewage treatment plant and said ‘you have arrived at your destination’^ when we were trying to find the cinema.^^  But this new one is obviously a near blood relative.

^ In Billy Connolly’s voice BEFORE SHE TURNED IT OFF.  Satnav-voice jokes are only funny once. 

^^ This was several years ago, and old-blog readers have already seen this story.

%%% I was already not in a good mood when Pooka, applied to at the concert venue for driving distances to another concert, declared that she couldn’t tell me anything because she wasn’t connected to the internet.  My provider said ‘log in’ and then wouldn’t let me.  And then it told me my account was off line anyway and to try again later.  ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH.^

^ Fiona promised, when she finally left last night, that she hadn’t heard any language she hadn’t heard before.

$ I HOPE IT SNOWS

$$ You know you book these things months in advance when the tour dates come out, because you’re only going to get the one shot at anything remotely in your area^ and if two bands you happen to want to hear are on consecutive nights at opposite ends of your bailiwick,^^ well, that’s just the way it is.

^ This doesn’t stop Fiona, who is happy to drive to Aberdeen for a concert she fancies.  She doesn’t have hellcritters.

Also, she is mad.#

# Hey, she’s the one taught me to knit.  ’Nuff said.

^^ Fortunately I have more than one friend who is willing to do the driving.

I’m actually thinking of getting a satnav.#  But we won’t go there tonight.##

# I’m looking for one that specifies ‘no sewage treatment plants’.

## We won’t go there!  Hahahahahahahahaha!

$$$ And remember what I said about ‘opposite ends of your bailiwick’?  Yeah.