Well Darlings,
The day started strangely. It was the morning after the night before, as my head so kindly reminded me on trying to wake. There were words rattling around in my brain as it was attempting, with little success, to stack them somewhere for later reference. It was as if they were important, so I tried to manage a couple, all the time wondering from whence they came. Slowly, as I turned over to face the world, or more accurately reached out for the first cigarette of the day - the one that would enable me to make it all the way to the kitchen and the salvation of coffee, it dawned on me that the words had come from the still on television.
The 24 hour News channel, the electronic parrot that once having learnt something repeats it constantly for hours on end, was blaring at me. I can remember thinking the neighbours would be well informed on current affairs this morning as I fought with the remote to quieten the beast, my eyes still closed, when a few of those not very efficiently stacked up words fell into place. There was: "royal" and: "male" and a little gem that always demands attention: "interfered with".
Realising that that which wakes up first was feeling exceptionally youthful this morning, its own brain fully awake before mine and having heard the news was already pleasingly playing imaginations to my mind behind my closed eyes, the naked pictures of a giggling youth-some two-some suddenly exploded with the force of a thousand megatons into the unholy sight of the enormous backside of some woman bent over in a postal sorting office when I finally I forced my eyes to open.
At my age such a shock could be fatal, so I reached out and lit a cigarette - and then tried to ignore the already lit one in the ashtray as I dragged myself out to greet my distant cup. The kettle was annoying, it was as if it knew my state. Does it really take that much sound to heat water? I glared menacingly at it, but it chose to ignore me. It does that.
By the second cup I had reached the computer. Sitting in front of it, holding my head in my hands, I prayed for an easy day as the start-up screens flashed by and three of my protection software packages fought with each other to tell me they were updating. I knew better than to interfere with their progress and waited another full minute before asking ePrompter what mail had arrived overnight. Oh, God! Seventy-six on that one, thirty-seven on that one, a ten and a pleasing four. No, I wouldn't try to add them up I thought, as I plumped for the four first.
An hour later, and several more cups of coffee, I feverishly started looking through the news feeds, searching for something to write about. I knew it would be painful. Answering the e-mails had been hell. The "h" and the "a" on the keyboard had been playing up for sometime, requiring seven bells knocked out of their keys before they'd emerge onto the screen, but now the "Enter" key required more pressure too, more than I had at that time of the morning and I was forced to use the one on the numerical pad. As I struggled with the repetitive disasters of missing it and hitting "page down" or "delete" I swore that today I would go out and purchase a new keyboard, as I have been swearing it daily for the past month. I will still be swearing it tomorrow, as yet again I haven't bought one.
It's not the cost of a keyboard. They are cheap enough, even the good ones. No, it's the effort required to stick its end into the little hole around the back of the beast of many wires. I know if I pull this one out and then try to reach around to insert the new one the hole will have moved. I will be like some teenager on his first and longed for invitation, fumbling around aimlessly with no idea of what is where. I will be forced to dismantle everything. That's no mean task with the beast linked up to the computer next to it, the DVD player, the television, the VCR, and it seems everything else in the house bar that damn kettle. The effort involved will be immense, and you can't buy an effort anywhere, can you?
But I shall have to do it soon. I am loath to at the moment because everything else is working so well, and from past experiences I know it hates being interfered with. And now I have written "interfered with" too many times not to mention its true and original context today.
It has been announced the Royal Mail is to be fined