Kitchen Nonce

Warming Up

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Oh my God! I don't know how it happened, but my car charger is working. Magical car charging app elves must have taken my phone whilst I slept and sorted it out for me. Either that or one of my attempts to connect somehow worked yesterday (and that's why it said I couldn't try any more because someone else owned it - it WAS me). I found a page on the app where all my failed attempts were listed, but one was successful. What a weight off my shoulders.

But how did it happen?

I think my car charger just took pity on me.

And I didn't injure myself in any way or break anything today. Things have really turned around for me.

My new life of moving boxes around and unpacking things and going to pick up stuff continued. It's just this until the blessed release of death. It's a good punishment for my enthusiastic embracement of consumerism. Look at all the things you've bought. You now have to touch every single one. Sometimes for only the second time.

Today I went to the old house to pick up my streaming computer and puppets. I think it will be a little while until it's all set up and ready to go, but now I have internet again there's a chance we can start streaming something or recording some remote pods.

It didn't seem right to be separated from my puppets, as spooky as it is to know that they come to life at night when I am asleep. Prince Andrew has been with me for a week, as I wanted to introduce him to Michael Sheen. He is sitting up on a shelf in the kitchen. My daughter finds him scary. And that's why I am leaving him there for now. It's very important that she finds Prince Andrew scary. She's nearly 10 for goodness sake.

I did try to sort out a few chores now I have the internet. I had to renew my mobile phone contract and I also wanted to get rid of the payment that allowed me to use my Apple Watch as a phone when I don't have my phone. I nearly always have my phone and this service is not worth £7 a month to me. If it was £2 a month I'd probably have left it.

It was an incredible complex thing to get this sorted. I was trying to do this using the chat function and it took about an hour just to set up the new contract. When I then wanted to cancel the watch connection I had to be transferred to a different person on chat. In fact I just got cut off and had to start again. There was a 30 minute wait and then eventually the person I was typing to told me that it was not possible to cancel the watch contract on the chat and I'd have to use the app. I had already tried to do it on the website and it had said I needed to phone and the app said the same. But I tried to phone whilst I waited for my chat response and all the options just sent me in a circle of recorded messages. I couldn't use the option to end a contract as I now had a two year phone contract and at no point was I able to talk to a person.

I typed to the chat man and insisted he remove the contract as there was no other way to do it and it turned out that he could do it after all. And he did it. But it took a very long time. And my afternoon had gone. And all I had out of it was a blog that could appear on the letters page of a local newspaper.

Someone told me yesterday's blog made me sound like Victor Meldrew. I am older than Richard Wilson was when. he first played that part.

I think I am actually generally OK at tech and embrace change, but it's wryly amusing/fucking annoying when tech sends you round in circles or spiralling into madness.

RHLSTP Book Club with the extraordinary Richard Ayoade is now up. There’s a chance to win copies of all the Harauld Hughes books if you listen to the end.

Here’s a little clip