iPod /Pad /Touch thingy

I am not a technophobe, but I do dislike technology that is there for technology’s sake, whose sole purpose is to make something simple, more complex. Like mobile phones for example.  I do have a mobile phone, but I never switch it on in case someone tries to ring me.

Anyway, thought I'd get myself a music thingy: an iPod so I could take pleasant strolls around town, watching all the poor slobs going to work / coming home from work / working, and I could sit drinking my mocaccino and listening to erudite recordings of Gustav Mahler's Das Knaben Wunderhorn and the like.

So I’ve got the iPod working (with the remote help of my son, but that’s another story). I’ve got my music on it. I’ve made my playlist, and I’m nearly ready for my first outing into town. I can’t get those stupid bud things to stay in my ears, so I am going to buy some nice smart, neat little headphones, but in the meantime, I dig out my 70’s era massive BASF headphones which look like two cement mixers covered in squidgy grey plastic, welded together with a steel girder: you know the type. They are wrapped around the head of that 90 year old geezer on the front cover of “Your 100 most relaxing Easy Listening Tunes” LP, wearing his onezy and tartan slippers, relaxing in his rocking chair as the labrador slobbers over his knee-rug.



So there I am, on the 8.40 into Kings Cross, train reasonably packed. I put my cement mixers on and discreetly get my iPod out, trying not to bring attention to myself.

So it’s playing, and it’s a bit loud. Now the last thing I want is to be like those inconsiderate oiks who play Dub Funk Garage music so loud you can hear the tzzt tzzz tzzz from three carriages away, so I try to turn it down. Of course, it’s all touch screen stuff. No handy volume button for crying out loud. I am trying to drag the volume button down a bit and nothing is happening. I wiggle my finger around and suddenly it’s max volume and I am deafened. I rip the cement mixers off and the carriage is treated to “One Love” by Blue. I desparately try to turn down the volume but now the screen has gone blank, as it does annoyingly after about 2 nanoseconds

In a flash of inspiration, I pull out the headphone jack, but of course, now the bastard device merely plays through it’s own tinny speaker

“…ONE LUUURVE FOR THE CITY STREET…”

There are looks. There are a few “tch’s”. Lots of paper rustling and frowns

“…ONE….LUUURVE FOR THE HIP HOP BEAT…”

I am a 58 year old portly bald, grey looking geezer. Teenage girly hiphop type stuff does not sit naturally with me, judging from the smirks coming from my commuting audience.

I frantically press the screen. It comes back on, but on a completely different page. All the instructions that my son painstakingly went through have vacated my brain. I eventually get the right page back, but press skip instead of pause

OH HERE WE ARE AND HERE WE ARE AND HERE WE GO……



I consider stomping on the thing.

…HERE WE GO…OH ROCKIN’ ALL OVER THE WORLD…

Volume..volume..volume.. where's the bastard volume control..off switch...

…AND I LIKE IT I LIKE IT I LIKE IT I LIKE IT…

The train pulls into a station.

“Mind the gap”

Mind the sodding gap? I try to hurl myself into the gap so I can mercifully fall under the wheels thus putting an end to my agony.