March 12th - No news is … no news.

12/03/2009 by Brigid.

You will have noticed that we have been conspicuous by our absence for the last couple of months and, to be frank, we have started to get complaints. The truth is that things have been fairly quiet.  As Marriot Elgar once wrote, “there was no wrecks … nobody drownded, ‘fact nothing to laugh at, at all”. I suppose we should be quite grateful.

My enthusiasm for writing has also been tempered recently by a disobliging computer. In fact, as I sit here, cheerfully tapping away on my new laptop, I realise that the frequent losses of hours of work have had a profound psychological effect – possibly permanent! Even now, I find myself looking for the tell-tale signs that this new machine might be about to close down, freeze or self-destruct. I am almost willing it upon myself.

That said, I am not sure which is more nerve-racking: a computer whose only predictable feature is that it doesn’t work properly, or the veritable roller-coaster ride involved in setting up a shiny new one.

I did take the precaution of asking John to start the process of installing Windows Vista, partly because I know nothing about the dark art of setting up the router, and partly so that I would have someone else to blame when it all went wrong … as it soon did. It took just two or three clicks of the mouse to irrevocably set the primary language to French: “France French” to be precise, presumably to differentiate it from Belgium, Djibouti, or Vanuatu French. To be fair, this did come as something of a surprise to us both, as the menu option suggested that he was about to set the time and date. 

The router connection successfully established, I was now, worryingly, connected to the Internet. The pre-installed anti-virus software helpfully informed me that my computer was already at risk, and Windows, reassuringly, insisted that there were “multiple problems” with my security. I moved the cursor and hovered over the Security Centre icon. “An unknown program is trying to access your computer. Accept vi*gra4u.exe? Yes. No.” NO! I tap the touchpad. Another window opens. “Reset homepage to luciouslucys*xysingles? NO! At this point the glossy widescreen resolution shrinks the image to 10% and the menu bar disappears off the page. Not to worry, my next action expands everything to 500% and the cursor vanishes completely.

I go looking in the Control Panel for the touchpad sensitivity settings. “Ping!”, goes the computer. “Initializing Babbletwat instant messaging … connect with friends you don’t know and have never met …” NO! NO! NO!

There used to be a time when new computers were packed in polystyrene chips, and delivered in boxes so large that they could easily have housed two or three vagrants under Waterloo Bridge! At least half of the fun of getting one, was the time spent finding the English-language portion of the owner’s manual, and thumbing through a dozen or so freebie CDs to see what was worth keeping. Not so anymore. My laptop came in a disappointingly small, laptop-sized, box, without so much as a quick start guide. Not that there wasn’t plenty of freebie software pre-installed, it is just that one had to consent to the licence agreement before it would actually tell you what it did. Suffice to say, most of it has now been meticulously de-installed.

Still, we’re getting there now. With a bit of jiggery-pokery, I eventually managed to convince Windows Vista to accept a backup file from XP, and most of the system menus are back in English. I feel almost at home. Even the machine’s remaining Gallic quirks are beginning to grow on me …

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