It's Like Losing A Sense

On Sunday I was checking out iPod dock speaker systems in a national retailers store in Brum. I slotted my iPod into an Hitachi radio alarm setup, pressed play...and nothing happened. I took my iPod out of the dock and watched in dismay as the screen melted away into blank nothingness.

All the button combinations in the world wouldn't bring it back to life. I ran across the road to the Apple shop to see if they could revive it. 2 or 3 Apple "genii" poked and prodded and plugged and pressed at it for a while and then told me "sorry mate, it's dead".

Apparently the speakers in the shop I had been in had shorted my iPod and killed it. There was nothing that could be done for it. It was an ex-iPod. And if I wanted to swap it for a new one (they don't repair iPods) then it would cost me £109.99 as mine was out of guarantee.

I had to go away and think about that.

The upshot is that all this week I have been iPod-less on my daily train commute to and from work. That trip takes about 1 hour 20 minutes door to door and being without my little black jukebox has exposed me to the horror that is other people's conversations !

My god the general public talk some drivel and I am close to standing up in the middle of a packed commuter train and screaming "WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE SHUT UP, YOU ARE DRIVING ME INSANE" as loud as humanly possible.

Some people appear to have a great need to vocalise every single waking thought. What's for tea, who's suffering from what ailment, which friend is wasting their time on a no good fella. I even heard one woman say to another "What's your favourite, spaghetti or pasta" !!!

I am planning to buy a new iPod at the weekend...it can't come soon enough.