The rewards of modern technology – fury, blasphemy and catatonia!

I cannot begin to tell you of the fear and loathing in which I hold modern technology. A series of problems over recent weeks plunged me into alternate bouts of Luddite fury and depressive stupor.

Generally, the difficulties involved my computer and mobile phone but my washing machine betrayed me, too.

Most electrical gizmos, irons, kettles, lights and so on, have a switch which clicks from side to side, turns like a dial or flicks up and down.

What starts my washer is a button: press it and the machine springs to life. Recently, however, once depressed, the button refused to re-emerge.

I could have called a technician out at £40 a time, but I decided on a bit of self-help. With the aid of a slender needle, I coaxed the button out of its hidey-hole and the machine whirred into action.

My caveman solution has worked a few times since then. But I know full well that the day will arrive when the wretched button will refuse to respond to the needle trick and I’ll have to pay for a bad design fault by the manufacturer.

The washing machine pales in comparison with the computer. Suddenly, everything froze. The computer guy declared that the hard drive, whatever that is, had died the death.

Result: three days offline while a new one is sourced. Now, I know I just said I hate computers, but being without one is a form of agony, too, leaving one bereft, nervous and isolated.

Eventually, a new hard drive was installed, but like all techies, my guy took the opportunity of upgrading me, the result being that nothing was familiar any more, commands were changed, everything was in a different place, work did not move any faster and my life was not improved one whit.

Quite the opposite. As helplessly and randomly I poked and prodded, stress levels soared once more and the blasphemy quotient shattered all records.

TECH PROBLEMS
My four siblings urge calm, pointing out that three of them own neither mobile phones nor computers and their lives are just fine.

Good for you, I say, but I don’t think my patient friend, Fred Mutiso, who handles this column every week, would be too pleased if I started sending in hand-written copy by mail.

Now the mobile. Emails stopped showing up on the phone. Seems my password had “fallen off” and needed to be re-set.

Of course, I couldn’t remember the password and the professionals seemed reluctant to help me set a new one, talking vaguely of legal threats.

The only good thing in two days of agony was meeting Apple’s computer genius, Drew from Tennessee.

Now what do you think someone with a soaraway level of techno skills would major in at university? Advanced cybernetics? Superior maths? Stratospheric science? Wrong.

Drew’s degree is in Shakespearean Studies! Technology was, well, a kind of hobby, he said, which almost made me cry.

Mercifully, between chats about Falstaff and Prince Hal, he set me on the path to redemption.

Not that I am a free man. I’m still struggling to make a donation to a Kenyan charity in the face of incomprehensible demands from the bankers which neither I, nor other bankers, understand.

And how can I travel with dignity on the Metro when my new pass won’t activate the gates?

***
As opposed to malignant technology, people — real, human, living people — can be nice.

Leaving my bag at the British Library cloakroom last week, I asked what was the charge. “A smile will do,” said the assistant brightly.

A few hours later, a lady sitting in a reading area coughed continually, causing the man opposite to raise his eyebrows. Eventually, he got up.

Oh, oh, I thought, trouble! But what he did was reach into his pocket and offer the lady a strip of cough sweets.

***
If you want to keep your bike safe, you leave it locked in a busy and well-lighted area with lots of CCTV cameras, right? Wrong.

A man who used to steal 10 high-value bicycles in London every weekend said: “The more cameras and people the better for the thief. People are like sheep, they feel safe and pay less attention when together.”

Speaking anonymously on an online site, Stolen Ride, the ex-thief said he and an accomplice worked weekend nights when police were dealing with drunks.

Armed with bolt-cutters, they went out on motor-bikes; spotting a target, the pillion man would snip the bike’s lock or chain, then pedal happily away in the wake of the motor-bike.
***
Cyberphobic son needed to use his mum’s computer and asked for the password. From another room, she called “Start with a capital S then 1,2,3”.

After several failed attempts at S123, he pleaded for help. “What’s so difficult about Start123?” she asked.

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