The horror of email

 

MY EMAIL IS DEAD*.  AND I WANT MY SERVER’S GUTS ON A PLATE.**

I had an email a few days ago from my host or whatever the arglebargle jerkface, saying that my email was migrating.  Quack quack quack or similar.  I had no idea that email was of a nomadic bent.   And that when this process was complete and it was contentedly nest-building in its new neighbourhood I was going to have to mrffjjjx darblefhha gormblad, being extra-careful with the tuvuprk so that it doesn’t hipplycritz.  I leaped back with a cry as if I’d been burnt, and forwarded this dreadful memorandum to Raphael.  Who replied laconically that he would come out and reconfigure, and that he’d bring restraints for the tuvuprk , which was prone to bolting.

Migration was supposed to occur on Monday.  How was I supposed to know if it’s happened or not?  My email continued to behave as normal, which is to say as if possessed by demons, but no better or worse than it ever does.

Raphael came today on the assumption that my email must have moved into its new home by now and was ready for him to hang the pictures on the walls and fix the leaky tap and the sticky door.

Nope.  Still migrating.  Maybe it has a lot of boxes of books.

So he can’t reconfigure.  And therefore he took his departure*** and I went about my (slow†) business

This evening, firing up the laptop for the first time since about an hour after Raphael left . . . MY EMAIL IS DEAD.  I sent a suitably outraged text to Raphael who rang me from home, trying not to laugh, but it’s so dead he can’t talk me through a patch.

He’s coming again tomorrow, poor man.  The hellterror will be delighted.

* * *

* So is the dishwasher.^  This is a CALAMITY.  Peter, while admirably domestic in theory, and goes through the motions beautifully, belongs to that quaint British philosophy which holds that most household chores are performed for their ritual function, in which gesture, posture and the type and quality of your ceremonial objects are the crucial aspects, and hygiene has nothing to do with it.^^  AAAAAAAAAUGH.^^^

^ I mean the electric appliance.  Calm down.

^^ Yes.  British.  Sue me.  We have slobs in America—lots of slobs, in fact—but this business of faithfully and energetically applying the dish mop# to no discernable effect is British.

# That’s part of the problem right there.  Dish mop?

^^^ Also something previously living has taken its final departure from this mortal coil somewhere rather too nearby and we have the invasion of big fat bluebottle flies at the mews to prove it.  Yuck.#  The only thing to be said for having them in the middle of winter is that they’re really slow and you can just about whap them out of the air, should you want to, and not bother waiting for them to light somewhere.  I HAVE THREE DOGS AND NOT ONE OF THEM IS INTERESTED IN CATCHING FLIES.  It’s not a rabbit, say the hellhounds.  It’s not a hedgehog.  IT’S TOO HIGH UP, says the hellterror, whose pogosticking is not an exact science.##

# Peter, at the far end of the mews, which is very nice for those of us who sing a lot louder than we used to and don’t want to be heard by the neighbours, is slap up against farmland, and the farmer in this case is a slob, speaking of slobs.  Peter’s too nice to take her to court.  He could.

## I think I’ve told you—? the story of one of Peter’s in laws ringing us up in a panic, many years ago now, while we were still at the old house, because she was having a sudden invasion of bluebottles and was assuming The World Was Ending?  I happened to answer the phone.  Nah, I said, it’s just that something’s died in your vicinity.  If you have any closed-up chimneys or similar—especially if there’s a funny smell—it’s worth trying to find and dispose of it.  If not, buy an extra fly swatter and hunker down.  It’ll be over pretty soon—a few days, a week.   Oh thank you, she said.  I knew you’d know.

Hmmm.

** Yes, Peter is still alive and breathing and his body parts remain in conformance to the standard arrangement.  Although he went to his Wednesday bridge club today and confessed when he came home that he had faded badly by the end.  You had a stroke a month ago.  Lighten up.^

^ I’m still not in a very good mood.  I’m being vouchsafed the honour of giving him a ride home from town tomorrow morning+ because he has to climb up the long hill to my end of town.  I’ll get the palanquin dusted off.++

+ Sic.  Late morning.

++ Hey.  We have four bearers.  Two hellhounds, a hellterror, and me.  I admit the height differential is tricky#, but we’ll figure something out.

# Not to mention hellterror directional control

*** After a brief frustrating conversation about Android tablets, because the tablet-sized homeopathic software I want is only on Android.  Fie.^

^ And while Astarte is a wonderful machine in many ways+, even Raphael has never managed to make her play nicely with PC-based email.  Speaking of frelling email.

+ I am presently reading another cheap ebook that I again bought for the author’s name when it appeared in one of the weekly Kindle come-ons and . . . . arrrrrrgh.  FOR PITY’S SAKE GET ON WITH IT.  It’s alternate history and they want you to know they have DONE THEIR HOMEWORK.  If this were hard copy I’d’ve thrown it across the room by now.  As it is the skimming swipe-finger is so seductive I may even finish it.  If reading one page in five counts as finishing.

† I’m due to go Street Pastoring this Friday and I’m going.  ME, are you listening?  You can knock me around two more days.  Friday night I have plans.