It's New Year's Eve (again) so here is my last blog of 2010. Full of Christmas cheer and without having thought of work for over a week, this blog, unashamedly, has absolutely nothing to do with the law. It is a tale from 2010 about deep technical despair but even deeper contentment arising from my favourite hobby: travel. It was a tale that leapt into my mind when trying to install by kids' Xbox Kinnect on Christmas Day. I love Father Christmas as much as the next man...but delivering the presents, frankly, is the easy bit!
It was on a day in mid September that I went to bed feeling particulary irritable and exhausted. I felt really old. This must have been how my gran felt, I thought, when her bank sent a cashpoint card in 1987. I remember having to go on the bus with her to Harrow to impart my youthful experience of such things. She was the strongest person I’d ever met in my life, but I felt so sorry for her that day – unable to cope with technological change; a new-age incompetent.
In fairness to my dear old gran, she’d taken 71 years to reach this depressing moment of acknowledgment (I suspect in everyone’s life) that the tools of life are moving too quickly for us to catch them up. Within those 71 years, she’d witnessed the switch from horse and cart to motor car. She’d witnessed the switch from propeller planes to commercial jet airliners. She’d witnessed the still more staggering developments in flight technology which saw men being shot up to the moon for goodness sake. Why then at just 41, I thought solemnly, had I also become a new–age incompetent; a technophobe? Why had I becoming isolated from the rest of society? When, I thought, had I become such a complete and utter loser?
That day had started badly. I needed to be away at 6am for a training seminar. The Law Society require all solicitors to undertake "Continuing Professional Development" which creates few great lawyers but, presumably, makes somebody lots of money. Unfortunately the alarm on my new mobile didn’t ring. It was an iPhone chosen by my 10 year old son. He’d set a new ring tone (Hersham Boys by Sham 69) within 3 minutes of the thing coming out of the box. I had a photo of Paulo Di Canio as my IPhone “wallpaper” inside 10 minutes. He then took a video of his 6 year old sister pretending to be Lady Gaga and competed in the Olympics against his cousin (resident 6 miles away!) before boredom finally set in. If only I’d got him to set the poxy alarm!
In my car 2 hours later at 8am, I frantically stabbed and fumbled with my wife’s TomTom. But could I get to the post code entry screen as explained so nonchalantly to me the night before? No I bloody couldn’t. Nor could I even get the device to stay stuck to the dashboard. Between my home and my training seminar in deepest Deptford, the device fell into the crutch of my trousers 6 times. To add insult to injury, these were the only occasions when the bloody thing spoke to me.
These periodic TomTom blows to my midriff did nothing to abate my anger, nor reduce my blood pressure. Throughout my road rage the new iPhone vibrated half a dozen times in my pocket. Each time a “bluetooth disabled” command roared from the central console of my dashboard. I stopped at a lay by with a view to asking my son what a blue tooth was and how it could help me in life. Despite more erratic poking, I couldn’t even get the phone to make a call. I couldn’t see a green phone sign on that plasma screen for love nor money.
On arrival I sprinted to the sound of sirens through the reception area towards a conference room marked “meeting in progress”. I was pulled back by a security guard wielding a large plastic probe. I thought my gonads had been given enough attention by my wife’s TomTom - but that was wishful thinking.
As I emptied by pockets I could see that my iPhone was showing 16 missed calls. “But I haven’t heard Sham 69 once this morning, for f##k sake” I wailed to myself in despair. “Keep that vulgarity to yourself” responded the security guard as he poked his bleeping probe into the small of my back. “You’re not on Facebook now” he added.
“What the f##k is Facebook?” was all I could muster before being escorted out of the building in a half nelson.
When I got back to the office, an irritating junior colleague asked whether the seminar had been presented via “Power Point” or “Keynote”. I shrugged and just said “Who cares?” before going to my office, ringing my wife and begging her for an immediate holiday. Two forgotten internet passwords and a pint of lager later, I was in town taking the old-school “see a travel agent” option. It seemed preferable to navigating through Google, buyacheapflight.com, donotusebuyacheapflight.com and doyoufeeluselessyet.com – where I would inevitably lose my credit card details and personal ID to some clever little sod in Nairobi
To be fair to the travel agent, he threw me back on a road towards salvation. After unleashing my technological woes upon him and expressing my urgent need for peace, he told me I needed to go to the West of Ireland …to Galway , specifically, for the International Oyster Festival.
So it was to Galway that I flew, with my wife, the day following those sullen thoughts about technological advances and my gran’s descent from greatness.
We flew with the little known Aer Arann from Luton . The plane had propellers on each wing. I had never been on such an antiquated plane but, peculiarly, I found the little propellers quite comforting as we spluttered across the Irish Sea .
On arrival at Galway airport we discovered that flights were incoming but temporarily not outgoing. There was apparently a very dangerous oil slick on the runway. There was a fire engine on hand but sitting idle along with its crew. They all watched as 3 men in luminous jackets took it in turns to brush away the oil with a large broom.
As a consequence of the oil spill, the departure lounge was heaving. To my surprise (but helping the process by which tranquility, as a concept, was becoming reunited with my aching brain) there wasn’t an ounce of stress to be seen. Some played cards; others drank Guinness; most were just talking and laughing. There was not a phone or a laptop anywhere
.
“I’m going to like it here” I told my wife as we queued for a taxi.
Unfortunately our cab then ran out of petrol a mile out of the airport. It was like water off a duck’s back to the driver – and by then to me as well. “That’ll be the children again - driving here, there and feckin everywhere without asking me….Still, serves me right for all those impure thoughts, eh?”
He had no phone to call for assistance. As he started to walk up the road with a green plastic container from his boot, he shouted back that the gaelic football club 2 fields across would be a decent way to spend some of the afternoon. “When God invented time, he made plenty of it - so enjoy the craic and I’ll pick you up in a bit. The oysters will still be there tomorrow!” We followed our orders.
Three hours (and a very exciting match) later our cabbie arrived back. He appeared to be with his wife. He was fully suited and booted. The pair were clearly both there for a good night out. I caught our driver’s eye as he marched to the bar. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I forgot all about you – I must get you both a pint now.” He then turned slowly to his wife: “For f##k’s sake I forgot to fill the cab up too.”
“You’ve a head like a colander” mused his wife “only not as useful” she continued. “I wondered what you were doing with the petrol can when you came in” she concluded, her husband nodding to give full acknowledgement to his own ineptitude.
“We’ll get you a ride to your digs after I’ve told you the one about the four nuns at the farmyard….” said our errant taxi driver before proceeding to tell us every joke in his repertoire. Time became lost after that. We drank loads but we laughed loads more.
By midnight we were on the football field learning the art of gaelic football with a cabbage…and between 1am and 3am we were back inside the clubhouse dancing to the Pogues and singing to U2. All in all it was indeed a great craic!
The next morning we awoke in our B&B to the smell of bacon. The bacon was accompanied by eggs collected from the backyard that morning by the owner’s daughter. I had 3 mugs of tea to wash it all down – and it was heavenly.
Immediately after breakfast we were collected by our new friends from the night before.
“Still no taxi, but it’s ok, we’ll walk to Morans in Kilcolgan – it’ll do us all the power of good."
Kilcolgan meant nothing to me, but after seven miles of wind in our faces and sun on our heads, we were there, by a weir, picking oysters from their shells and supping the creamiest Guinness within God’s creation.
The walk had been invigorating; the company enthralling; our destination both charming and reinvigorating in equal measure. I felt alive again…and at no disadvantage at all for the absence of a tweet. My wife sent a text to our son from the weir side: “C U L8er my luv. dad says iphone is yours. he luvs u 2!”
So if you nothing else in 2011, get yourself to Galway. Happy New Year!!
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