A New Year, a New Title and For Whom the Bell didn't Toll

I was perusing previous blogs, looking for something I thought I'd mentioned when it occurred to me that the main title of the blog didn't reflect the somewhat harassed hand of cards that life seems to have dealt me lately. I have amended it but with the hope that at some time in the near future I will feel confident to change it back to the more hassle free one.

This morning was not a bin day. Indeed, it was a day of rest before I girded up my loins to do battle with DHL mobile phone delivery services on Wednesday... or so I thought. Yes, dear reader, once again the fickle phone finger of fate had hovered over Chez Kojak and stabbed down piercing my postcode to the heart. I was upstairs at the time, admiring the sprung edge divan in passing when I thought I heard a faint noise which just might have been a gentle tap on my double-glazed front door. Opening the door after the usual scrabble for keys I spied a DHL van and glimpsed the rear end of the driver disappearing round the far side of it. Not the most welcome sight to greet one's first step outside but having passed "official" middle age I really should refrain from commenting on anyone else's "spread". I managed to attract the driver's attention before he had time to flee but also before I had time to think up a cutting sermon about inaudible door tapping when there is a perfectly good doorbell right in front of your eyes. Taken by surprise I also forgot the planned diatribe along the lines of "Where the hell were you yesterday and why aren't you delivering this tomorrow as planned?" Yes, dear reader, it was the new mobile phone. I lamely mumbled something like "This should have been here yesterday" and allowed him to escape. Naturally, he'd hardly gone out of sight before I remembered all the things I should have said which would have reduced him to a tearful and quivering amoebic heap.

Fate had not finished with me by any means. After eagerly ripping the envelope open and savouring the excitement that only post-Christmas presents can bring I put the battery on to charge and settled down to read the instructions. Now I know that we are in the middle of an economic depression and I'm fully aware that manufacturers are cutting costs along with the rest of us. I don't expect a leather bound folio of best quality vellum but I was a tad disconcerted at the folded scrap of paper which fluttered to the floor... and rightly so. On the face of it the "manual", what there was of it, seemed ok if a little sparce. Once the battery was charged and inserted the true nature of the beast emerged. On the website, the colour of the opened phone seemed attractive and different but I soon came to realise that red did indeed spell danger. Now all new and different phones present a certain initial challenge except perhaps to 10 year olds. In my youth, if you were fortunate you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Now it seems that every infant emerges into the world already conversant with the latest WAP, MP3, GPRS, MBE, OBE etc.  Although by mobile phone standards I am ancient in years I can still achieve a reasonable level of competence sufficient to allow me to master the basics by reading the manual. This  "manual" could have been folded and fitted quite nicely into the window of one of those charm bracelet trinkets that were so popular when I was... well... a few years ago. The menus were laid out quite clearly. What was not laid out clearly, in fact not laid out at all was how to program those menus to appear in the first place. I was actually at the point of phoning the helpline and complaining that the phone was faulty before a chance press of a key led me down a complicated and lengthy path to eventually get the phone into some semblance of a workable instrument. I am sure that there is much more to be done but mental fatigue has set in for tonight at any rate. To quote a 007 Bond film, tomorrow is another day... or maybe I'll leave it until the day after....