Saturday 31 July 2010

Too much information?

I got it because I wanted simple and tough; I just needed to make, and hopefully receive calls, and send the odd text. I didn't want or need something flat and slick-looking, that could accept millions of 'apps', would guide me home on a starless night from a ditch in Suffolk, would mark me out as homosexual in a crowded tube, would.... I just wanted a basic mobile. I could even drop 'tough' - I don't work on a building site, and I don't pothole. But if I were to drop it into a urinal, or let it slip from a tall building, it would be somehow comforting to know that the blight would still work.
The little Samsung that arrived almost fitted the bill - it will actually work in urine, and will happily accept 3 tons of pressure without complaint - useful if you are crushed by a truck, and need to call your doctor. But it also has some niggles in operation, and one kind-of crazy 'feature'. A very powerful torch that, until yesterday, I had filed under 'totally useless'. In fact a couple of times it proved to be worse than useless. The beam of light it projects is so strong that, you guessed it, it drains any battery life in about 30 seconds and it is possible for it to illuminate with very little pressure on the switch, while it languishes along with the fluff, in your pocket. Result? You grab the blight to make an urgent call that will decide whether you live in comfort in Holland Park, or in a shoebox in Cockfosters, and everything is dark and dead.
Yesterday? How shall I put this. I'm not a well man. I suffer, either for my sins, or without their influence. Yesterday it was London Bridge Hospital with shoulder-replacement pain. Anti-inflammatories and pain killers had made me a stranger to the white porcelain for several days and, care-of a blister pack of supa-lax that were probably meant for the cat, I had self administered what I imagined was a safe dose. Wrong.
The hospital had taken blood, and I had 2 hours to kill. Not enough time to get up-west to see a couple of pictures perhaps, or a nice graveyard in the City. Wandered instead into Borough Market, had a fairly ordinary Pork Bap (£4.00) and found a boy posing as Pip, who had great expectations that I would give him two quids for a plastic container of 'fresh' orange juice. I was, of course, a pushover. It being the very apex of the tourist season, I suppose these people can get away with this stuff?
Anyroadup, I'm drifting back to the vampire den for more leech application and the pain arrives, quite sharp, down south. Nurse Ratchet is about half a mile away - don't think I'll make it. Using the same muscles I employ when holding my stomach in on the beach, I try to stop vesuvius, but it is feeling hopeless. A cork? No, a loo. A disabled (I am!) loo. No light. Keep door open? Impossible. A torch....wait, I have one.
Thank you Samsung, the 'phone is so-so, but the torch is.....a must.

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