Wednesday, May 13, 2009

What an age we live in. I write this on an East Coast main line train to Glasgow Central, using the free wi-fi provided by National Express. Observation: download speeds were non-existent until York, when dial-up speeds were achieved. Obviously, if there were no-one else on the train, I'd get full-speed. Selfish bastards.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Why is it that the laptops I see people using on trains always look in showroom condition?

I'd never use mine in public because no matter how much I clean and polish the bloody thing, whenever I open it up again it's covered in fingerprints, biscuit crumbs and fluff.

Actually I did use my old one once but by the time the boot sequence completed, the battery had gone flat. I played it nonchalant, angled the screen so no one could see it and mimed typing all the way to Paddington. Happy days.

Apres la Guerre said...

Mine has fag burns in it, Rory, so I shouldn't worry too much!

Unknown said...

I can’t compete with that! I did once try vacuuming the keyboard only to find half the keys came off and ended up in the hoover bag. It’s a bugger trying to remember where they all go.

Apres la Guerre said...

Could be worse. I was once given a Sony C5 Betamax machine by a friend. On opening it up, I found a considerable quantity of pipe tobacco and boiled rice inside it. The tobacco I can almost understand, but I'll never get my head round how the boiled rice got in there (and I can't stress the boiled part enough.)

Simon said...

ALG - Maybe the vcr was being used as a cache by sophisticated urban squirrels. If you'd obtained the same friend's CD player there may have been noodles in there.

Louis Barfe said...

Next time I see someone on a train with a showroom-fresh laptop, I'll wait until they're in the loo and see how smooth the most frequently used keys are. If they've still got that texturing, the machine's either new, they change the keyboard weekly or they've just bought it to show off on trains.