Saturday 13 September 2014

Where's Bradley?


After about two years of struggling with a fickle and failing DVD drive in this Mac, I have finally had a new one fitted and I cannot tell you the joy and relief I am feeling because of it.

My right arm is falling off though, because I carried the bloody thing to the repairers, and they are all fitted with half-inch thick, steel stands. I opted for 800 yards on foot rather than 2.5 miles by car in order to avoid another £120 fine by driving up to my own house.

I have often looked at these iMacs and wondered how the HELL anyone gets inside them - there are no visible screws or anything, either front or back. I took it into the shop (run by a man who maintains 700 Macs for a local - very wealthy! - girl's school) and he attached two rubber suckers to the front screen, opened it like a well-oiled door and lifted it away - in about 3 seconds.

I have lived to see another mystery revealed - the sort of mystery that Apple likes to perpetuate amongst its customers so that they are too scared to do anything other than take their machines to them. It's the sort of thing I try to inculcate in my clients as well, so I know where they are coming from. You can charge a lot more money if people haven't got a clue as to how something is done. All people who work with stone and marble have been doing this for at least 3000 years.

This weekend is an extremely busy one for Bath. Yesterday, the Tour of Britain (we can still call it that for the time being) rode right past our house, today there is a huge and noisy rugby match right near our house (going on right now), Bath University has its annual open-day, and there is a Jane bloody Austen festival going on, meaning that the town is packed with people who are either wearing blue, white and black sweatshirts, or home-made bonnets and breeches. All the males are carrying walking-canes and adopting intelligent, conversational attitudes and all the females are trying to look demure. I cringe with embarrassment.

Around 10.00 am yesterday, the preparations for the Tour of Britain began outside, and streets were closed off to all but official cars and motorcycles with a few ambulances for any spectacular pile-up which - sadly - didn't happen. They weren't going fast enough. Even I could have kept up with the lazy bastards.

I told H.I. that I was going to watch it from the window and she looked boredly disinterested. At around 10.20, a helicopter flew low overhead, about 50 motorbikes roared past followed by about 200 men in Lycra, followed by about 20 support vehicles, all with about four spare bikes on their roofs - with flashing lights and sirens blaring above the noise of the helicopter.

30 seconds later, everyone went home and 30 seconds after that, H.I. came into the room and asked if anything was going on. "Too late," I said, "You've missed it."

"Why didn't you tell me about it?" She actually looked let-down.

I was of the impression we all had about 6 months advance warning for this 30-second event.

19 comments:

  1. Too true - as they came through our town on the TDF it was a case of whoosh and they were gone. Your title reminded me of a series of jig-saws we used to have, all of which had the title 'Where's somebody - I think it was Harry' and you had to spot this little man in a crowd of thousands. Your title and the photograph reminded me of just such an event, or should I say non-event.

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    1. It is 'Where's Wally'. I knew the man that drew them all, but he has become too rich to live in Bath now, and that's saying something.

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  2. You just have the most beautiful view out of your window.

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  3. I'd be quite happy to blink and miss a bicycle event. And I quite fancy a bonnet....

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  4. ps- turns out I have walked past your house many times judging from the view in the pic (once wearing a pink feather boa but we won't go into that). Next time I shall wave.

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  5. Inculcate, for fucks sake. What's wrong with normal, everyday language? Who was the leading the Tour our of Bath then and what Stage was it?

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    1. I hope you're enjoying your Saturday night glass of wine, Rachel.

      Re the last two questions, I haven't a clue.

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    2. I had to interrupt it to look the word up.

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  6. I have carried an iMac home on the bus. I bubble wrapped the screen first and that took the edge off the sharp edges too. I found that they tuck quite nicely under your arm ~ and sit quietly on a bus.

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    1. I don't have a bus service between the 800 yards of our house and the repairers that costs any less than a taxi, so I seriously considered a taxi, but - what the hell - I am a man, am I not... (don't answer that, anyone).

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  7. At least the space station passes reliably overhead every night.

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    1. Without any real fuss as well. I sleep right through it.

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  8. Similarly, I turned on the telly yesterday afternoon to see how well the Formula E cars performed, and I found the bloody 'credits' rolling by. I was hoping to have been more knowledgeable about electric cars; now I'm not!

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  9. What a great view you have there! The cyclists do rather spoil it though .

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