Today – Tuesday 10th June - yikes!
Well – to be exact – I am meeting a sales rep at
the virgin media shop in Edinburgh to discuss the hitherto unheard of
possibility of yours truly – PANTS sufferer (see blog 53) getting home internet
access.
If truth be told the pressure is on from
daughter no.3. Said
teenager has done happily without TV for the whole of her life and much other
modernity that her contemporaries feel are essentials – but lack of internet is
becoming a bug bear. Plus she seems to think I promised this as a sop to
uprooting her to a new home (I do not recall!)
My worries are many; microwaves all around me
for one. Possible invasion of mind altering viruses via said waves. Alien
attack through my laptop. Though I half suspect my little third-hand Toshiba
would implode if such thing were attempted. It sometimes packs up if I type too
quickly – as if in protest at the unseemly haste. I think I have a computer
with a Jane Austen complex!
But add to my internet-less-ness my soon to be
mobile phone-less-ness and things start to get tricky.
A couple of weeks ago I cancelled my Vodophone
contract. To be honest – it was an awful contract taken out in haste at
phones-4-u. Many an ear-bashing have I suffered at the hands of daughter no.1.
Much tut-tutting and sighing and rolling of eyes and ‘why didn’t you let me
sort it out-ness’ was endured by me, leading to a feeling of a certain lack of
dignity. Anyway – after months of dreadful bills I rang to cancel. The effect –
as I am sure you will know if you ever did such a thing – was that suddenly
everyone who worked at Vodophone wanted to be my bestist friend. They still do.
I keep getting phone calls from zesty young people who insist of chatting to me
as if we are bosom buddies – all first names and smiley voices and
howz-the-weather-where-you-are?? It’s a bit crazy in a not nice way. And all
they want to know – by the way – is why I am leaving. When I say it’s because the
contract’s been rubbish they try to sell me a contract MORE expensive than the
one I am trying to escape from, on the basis that they are doing me a favour
and it’s a much better deal. At which point I wake up screaming – or wish I
could.
SO anyway – I cancelled - though I am still
getting Vodophone phone calls and texts like a really horrible stalking
ex-boyfriend situation.
My new flat has Virgin wiring. SO – thinks me –
maybe I should check this out. I’d even heard rumours that one could get a land
line without the horribleness of having to have anything at all to do with BT
(see the BT [and other]cartoons by going to the posts in ‘view my profile’ in
the right hand column).
So I hauled my techno-phobic butt into the shop
on Hanover Street Argos
But the deal sounds do-able. The broadband /
mobile phone package seems suitable for a penniless writer though I may have to
forgo the landline for now – albeit that it was a fraction of what BT charged
and if owt went wrong they fix it for free. Free mending stuff sounded like the
most marvellous idea to me until I recalled that that’s how it should be and
how it was BEFORE BT was privatised and started putting huge charges on for
doing things they used to do as part of the service.
Anyway – I digress – as almost always.
So – back to the shop, undaunted by the really
embarrassing RBran ad that seemed to be constantly playing. Surely SURELY
someone at Virgin is going to tell Rich that starring in ads for your own
company is like doing the dad dance at weddings or loudly singing along with
Away in a Manger at your grandchild’s school nativity play!
I’m very nervous. The 21st century
does not suit me. I’m not sure the 20th did either. Anyway, let’s
see how this brown girl encounter with technology turns out...
This week’s recommended blog from the archives
is;
Blog 49 Dog
Pooh in Scented Bags!