Modern technology is shit

I finished The Great Gatsby this morning, and so am now carrying round the melancholy with which that book closes. My youngest is an advocate of it and I read it on her recommendation. I found it hard going at first and I couldn't see how it was the defining American novel -- what, more than Revolutionary Road or Sister Carrie? -- but then halfway through, the reportage of cyclical parties fades into the sad, elegiac denouement, where the detachment that I found irritating earlier on in the book comes to be a strength, in avoiding the cynicism that might have lured a weaker writer.

I went to Manchester the other day for an appointment at the Insolvency Service. He was a harassed, heavy-laden young man and I kept my answers brief, sensing that he might sometimes be dragged into having to cut off autobiographical meanderings that blur the line between insolvency and social work.

All done by 2.30, I sought sanctuary. I noticed that the woman of a similar age to me to my left had ordered the same beer as me. "Nice to see a woman ordering ale," I said. "Oh no, I like a nice pint of ale." She was Irish, but I restrained myself from asking whereabouts. I am so fucking considerate. I then pushed my pint a couple of inches back across the bar and asked for it to be topped up. "Do you not want yours topping up as well?" "No, I like a bit of head." "Oooh, don't we all!" I said, nudging her and thinking who are you with? Want to sit with me? Teetotallers -- you miss all this.

On my way into the pub, a gipsy woman was selling those little sprigs of heather wrapped up in a foil sleeve. I like the look and smell of heather and it's harmonious with my tweed jacket. "Hiya -- I'll have one of them," and I proffered 50p. "It'll be a fiver my dear." "It'll be 50p or nowt," I said.

She gave it to me and asked to take my hand. "This line here," she said, vaguely stroking some general region, "this line, I think you've had a relationship split up recently, and you've had a few drink and drugs problems." Well that narrows it down a bit. Who would speculate that someone on his way into a budget pub in central Manchester might have occasionally had a couple too many shandies in the past? I almost wanted to give her her fiver for such imprecise divining.

A friend gave me an iPhone4 a couple of weeks ago and even another friend who uses one all the time can't set it up. MAC addresses, something something settings... why can't you just put the fucking SIM in and go? That's even after I've made a virtual machine on this pc to get iTunes on it.

A new Belkin router arrived the other day which runs on the N band which is my next step in trying to correct the chronic stop start stop start of the broadband in this house, reconnecting about twenty times a day and turning the whole modem off about twice. Got it going (or so I thought) but even with the wired connection, I think waiting forty-eight minutes for an IP address is a bit shit.

William Morris said "Never have anything in your house which you do not believe to be beautiful or know to be useful."