Where in the world? Calcutta

Oh how i mourn the day i dismissively walked past the clean white lines of the Mac Store. How i wish i’d been able to foresee the hell i was signing up for at PC World; the sleepless nights, the broken computers, the weird phone-calls to head office, the hours spent leaning against those grubby little tech-support counters...

Today i saw a tantalising glimpse of the future before falling into a massive rabbit hole which took me on a helter-skelter ride back to the 1990s. And what was the future? The future was Apple. i am now the proud owner of an i-phone. This may come as a shock to those of you who read my blog on Easter Monday and saw my disparaging remarks about people disappearing into an i-existence; an i-hole if you like. i may now have an i-phone but i promise you i will not be pulled into that place. The i-phone will not rule my life or change me in any way. i shall simply i-be.

So, why did I vanish into a rabbit hole? Unfortunately I got a call yesterday informing me that my laptop was repaired and ready for collection at PC World in Moorgate. Nathan came down with me, and after picking up the lap-top we went to the Orange Store for the Apple product and whilst they failed to transfer my contacts from my luddite mobile phone, I took Nathan on an adventure through the streets of the City, which ended at St Olave’s Church; the church where Pepys is buried. We stared up at the wonderful, animated statue of Elizabeth Pepys, and sucked up the atmosphere in what’s fast become my favourite London church. It looked very much like it looked the first time I saw it; beautiful dusty sunlight streaming through the windows. A sort of melancholy stillness, that would spiritualise the most hardened atheist. A pair of musicians were preparing for a lunch-time concert so we were able to check out the acoustic, whilst imagining our 40 singers in a circle around the audience...

We returned to Highgate and I rushed up to the village in something of a panic, realising I hadn’t started work yet and it was already 1pm. I sat down, and keenly opened my computer... and immediately realised it was still broken.

...So I left my tea and headed straight back down to Moorgate, angrily demanding to talk to the manager of PC World. The red-faced geek behind the counter was offering to put it back in for repair. Everyone was confused and embarrassed. No one knew quite what to say but everyone was being so kind. I wanted them to be arsy so I could enjoy being nasty but it felt like I was drop-kicking a row of blue-eyed Andrex puppies. I think they know there’s little point in arguing with customers because like Andrex puppies, they know everything’s a bit shit. The manager had tunnel vision; not metaphorical tunnel vision; actual tunnel vision. He could obviously only see one of my eyes at a time, which didn’t help matters. If there was any requirement for him to look at something, he had to hold it up at a very specific angle about 6 inches from his face. But disabilities aside, I found his attitude impressive and he soon acknowledged that I wasn’t getting value for money or particularly good customer service.

The decision was therefore made that I would be given a new computer and that an assortment of inadequates would transfer all my data from my old computer to the new one. Unfortunately it took four people 30 minutes in front of a computer to work out how best to do this – and during this time the life drained from my soul. Another member of staff, the one who told me the last time that I ought to think about buying a Mac, said; “now you must decide whether to laugh or cry... or read War and Peace” which I thought was quite witty for a spod.

Meanwhile, the man who’d been served before me in the queue and had, like me this morning, picked up a newly mended computer, had returned. His computer hadn’t been fixed either. It was like an episode of multi-coloured Swap Shop, except we were the guys who’d swapped a BMX bike for a game of Operation where all the internal organs were missing.. Actually, it wasn’t at all like that. I’m currently just writing words for the sake of writing words. It's like therapy.

Eventually I was taken on a tour of the shop/ jumble sale to choose a new computer. Unfortunately every time I touched one of their display models, an alarm went off, which forced the person demonstrating to crawl behind the display unit to stop the dreadful noise. This happened again and again until he said he’d just have to stay there, calling up from below to tell me the specs of the various computers I was looking at. I wasn’t really listening. He could have been speaking French. A man kept walking past who smelt like he’d been bathing in lardons and it was making me feel a bit light-headed. Besides, computers for me are like cars. I just see the colour. So, I chose a nice red one which the man said would make me smile when I woke up in the morning. I thought that sounded fun and I needed him to come out from behind the display unit.

Meanwhile, other members of staff were playing a game in the aisles of the shop which seemed to involve racing around with a shopping trolley. I wanted to join in. It felt deliciously inappropriate.

It was at this point that I started laughing hysterically. My feet and back were aching, I’d watched the day disappear into a meaningless blur. The stapler behind the counter had stopped working and the red-headed lad was trying to extract my new contract from a crumpled heap of paper and mangled metal strips. The bloke with the other broken computer was screaming at someone else, so I thought of my little i-phone in it’s neat little box sitting in my computer bag and how I could look forward to caressing its virtual little buttons... and I laughed and laughed... Sometimes when the shit hits the fan, you just gotta hold your breath and dive into the cow pat.

The Nazeby had sailed through the night and Pepys woke up just off the tip of Kent, able to see Calais and the coast of France glinting in the distance. This pleased him greatly. There was another gale in the afternoon, which he faced better than the last one. They anchored just off Deal. The town’s castle sounded an approving gun salute, and the boats of the fleet responded with an orgy of canon and gun fire which filled the air with such intense smoke that for a few minutes the world and everyone in it vanished from sight. Later on, Balty finally left the ship armed with letters to Elizabeth and 15 shillings, which he'd borrowed from Pepys and was promising to return to his sister. Finally, Pepys could relax and focus on the adventure that was to come...