I live in the country. I am temporarily living in the middle of 1930s suburban London at my technologically naïve mother’s house. There is a popup toaster, a TV with a few rudimentary channels, about a dozen radios (with Terry Wogan living in them all) and that is about it.
There are two things that Mum’s house lacks that I realise I really don’t want to live without. I hesitate to say ‘cannot live without’ because I can but I prefer not to. A car and an Internet connection.
One. The garage (tiny by even Wellington standards) contains lots of junk (fine) but no car (not fine). I hate not having even an Opel Kadett in there; as there once was many moons ago. I could survive a couple of weeks without a DB9 or even my Jag but no car whatsoever is beyond a joke. I might yet hire one. Public transport? I suppose so. I pride myself in never having set foot on any from of public transport in New Zealand (planes excepted as I don’t have a pilot’s license). The public transport here works, it is absolutely overflowing with people and is very expensive. You can get a ‘Go Anywhere’ ticket for all London trains, tubes and buses for £6.30 which is a bargain but there are two things to note. The ticket is next to useless if you fold it in half in the pocket in your jeans as it will no longer be read by the automatic ticket reader gates. You then have to plead with the ‘Attendant’ to let you through as a favour on the level of sacrificing his first-born child. These ‘attendants’ operate in pairs (two blokes to mind one automatic gate) and they all wear bloody fluoro jackets. These bloody things are an even greater pest here than they are at home. Why do you need a hi-viz vest sitting by an automatic ticket gate fifty feet underground. The other thing to note about the ‘Go Anywhere ‘ ticket is that once you venture out of London Transport’s idea of London you start paying the GDP of a small country to go anywhere.
Two. Mum’s house has nothing even approaching an Internet connection. There is a ‘phone line but I left behind the ability to do dial up on any of my electronic devices years ago. I have ‘Data Roaming’ on the iPhone switched off as even the telco warns you that it will soon start being mind numbingly expensive if left on. I have no Internet and I like it even less than having no car. I could live in Starbucks except I haven’t found one yet. There certainly isn’t one in the local High Street (vide supra). I could turn Internet roaming on but I want to be able to buy a few bits and pieces later on in the month and not have to remortgage Obald Acres to pay for bandwidth. The likeliest looking way out at the moment would appear to be buying a prepaid data card for the iPhone. I will look into that later today.
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