I was coming to that one. First though, my laptop is mooing so I am in the roof. Cho isn't back till tonight, and this means I can go in the roof to use her computer. I have emailed the person who manages all our e-anxiety and shut my machine down for now. I only hope this doesn't get in the way of the answer to the question above.
Techno-death comes in waves. This is not to do with the random nature of probablility (the then-three-come-at-once effect), nor is this to do with the fact that if you have a lot of aging techno it will tend to start clapping out at inconvenient times. It is more to do with a malevolent spirit, Techno Arghh, who will undoubtedly feature in animistic religions of the future, if of course there is any techno left to be accursed, or indeed if there is any future, the Sex Pistols once having suggested there might not be.
The fact that the Sex Pistols' non-future was paradoxically some time ago notwithstanding, we have had a lot of techno-death in our house lately. There was the boiler episode a few days ago. Before that the handsets for our landline lay before Techno Arghh and expired. At about the same time there was a mercy dash to Plumb Center to get rubber trap washers so that water in the kitchen sink would go to Nowhere rather than leak over all the stuff under the sink. This is not to mention the car, when Techno Arghh told the brakes that they didn't have to try anymore. Nor is this to mention the kindly lent replacement vehicle that turned out, in transit, to have had its windscreen-wiper blades nicked. Yes, there IS a future, where I will find employment once more, but there are techno-demons to slay on the way.
In fact tomorrow I have a job to do. I will be checking the English in a postgrad student's dissertation. The fact that her English is excellent and that I will be hard pushed to find anything to correct is not going to put me off. Nor is the fact that her subject might as well be necromancy for all I understand of it. The only thing that could stop me is Techno Arghh. Lots of garlic tonight might be a sensible precaution, though I should probably text Cho first.
As well as the dissertation I am having a few students round next week for a private class. This will in no way compromise me legally vis a vis my college, nor be in competition with them. It would be deeply boring to explain why, but be assured. Anyway, for the first time since we all got that letter that was God's punishment for voting Lib Dem, I prepared a lesson today. It actually took all day, because of course at college all the alarms, crises, meetings and bureaucracy mean you only have just enough time before the lesson itself to fling something together. You get pretty good at it, though at some cost to inner tranquility.
Thinking about it, I'd rather face Techno Arghh with incantations and trap washers now and again than go back to daily battle with Bureauc Raghh. There is another question now, though. How much will it cost to stop my laptop mooing and to get the car through its MOT?
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