Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

I was annoyed by technology right from the off this morning, well before I left the Carpathia to come to work.

After breakfast, as is my custom, I took my coffee upstairs to take a look at the news and LJ on my computer. The computer had gone into one of its periodic power-saving comas whence it can only be resuscitated by pressing the standby button enough to jerk it into life but without rebooting it. So far so good. Except that the mouse no longer works. Or rather the buttons and the scrolling wheel work, but the pointer stays resolutely immobile.

So: reboot.

Nothing; mouse still arsing around. Luckily I had my art pad and stylus, which meant I could navigate through windows without trying to remember the sorely neglected and mainly forgotten keyboard commands.

Dig out wireless mouse, change batteries and link it to the computer. The other mouse remains uncooperative, but now I have mouse function on the wireless. I then do as most people would and try random functions in My Computer. Nothing happens, nothing changes.

At that point I decide to write a grumble on LJ to ask you good chaps if you have any bright ideas. Then the internet connection dies. The router is fine, the PC is fine, Furtle’s PC is fine. The home network is OK, but there is suddenly no DNS and the ports are playing up. Some problem at PlusNet, I reckon. After 15 minutes of cursing, the entire system sponts and we’re back on line and I’m late for work.

Sometimes I miss the analogue life, particularly when technology fails and then recovers for no apparent reason. I think my USB mouse is still poorly, though. As usual, I have no idea why: it was fine last night.

How’s your day going so far?

I can only imagine what it’s like for someone who actually cares, but I for one am fed up with reading about the Anglican Church imploding over the vexed questions of women and/or gay bishops. So far the knotty problem of the first lesbian bishop has yet to be addressed.

It is my understanding, and I am quite willing to ignore corrections or facts to the contrary, that the Anglican Communion is an inclusive communion. Apparently it is, provided you are male and straight. The debate seems to rage whenever a few bishops come together in the same place. Instead of arguing over the best way to bring their message to their flocks¹, they are far more concerned with the sexuality and sex of the least necessary tier of the entire church.

As unrepentantly ungodly as I am, I have by tradition and culture, if not by faith, a streak of the puritan in my make up. I try to stand on it to be sure and I think that most of the time I am reasonably successful. Anyway, the point is who actually needs bishops? Apart from kicking up unwarranted fuss in a very un-Anglican manner, or at least a very un-Church of England manner and maybe there’s the problem: the bulk of Anglicans are no longer Church of England, where acceptance is so broad that it can cope with atheist vicars at one end and non-papal catholic priests at the other.

The English are by nature a very unobservant (in religious terms) lot and like their vicars to be seen gently dozing at village cricket matches, officiating over village fetes and getting into muddles with the church roof fund. Pretty much anything, in fact provided the refrain from bothering us with religion outside the formidable trinity of rituals concerning hatchings, matchings and despatchings. Anyone who actually cares about Christianity adopts any one of a number of reformed churches, chapels or Catholicism, depending on their relative preferences for comfort, terror, guilt, singing, beady-eyed fanaticism and/or incense.

In today’s Times there is an interesting article: in 1850, the weekly congregation for the Church of England was about three million. Eighty percent of babies were baptised into the CofE and the entire structure got by with 26 bishops. In 1945, the congregation had fallen to two million, baptisms into the CofE were down to 70% and the number of bishops had risen to Ninety. Sixty-three years further along, the relevant figures are 900,000, 15% and One hundred and fourteen. At this rate, by the end of the 21st century, the Church of England communion will be on first name terms with their own personal bishop.

My taxes are paying for this unrepresentative bunch of out of touch idiots. It galls me that church and state are so intermingled. Disestablish the buggers and let them get on with it.

Think of the money we can save and they will still be there for the odd times when they are actually useful.

¹Actually, now I think about it, this is the accidental benefit emerging from the issue: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are quite pesky enough, without Anglican clergy turning up on the doorstep uninvited with a flask of tea and a slice of Madeira cake, “Let’s talk ‘God’ and will you have a tombola ticket?”

Well it seems that one decision has been made for me. I had been putting it off for a month or two, but now I don’t think I can. This is the trouble with dentistry – once you get involved with them it’s a domino effect inside your mouth. They either find new things to pay for putting their kids through college, or leave little dental time bombs so you volunteer to pay them the money they need to put their kids through college. Either way, Gentle Reader, the loser is most decidedly not the dentist.

Having – you should forgive the phrase – bitten the bullet and gone to the dentists for the first time in many years, I have had two fillings and one extraction. The decision I have been putting off is whether to pay £400 for a crown that they cannot guarantee or simply have that tooth extracted too, leaving me with a corking gap on the left. Long-time readers will know that I have a fear of dentistry; an atavistic horror that has only partially been assuaged by recent experiences. Despite this, I was leaning toward the expensive gamble of the crown that may not take. I don’t really want more gaps than I need. Sadly, finances may mean that I have to go for a simple extraction.

Last night there was a twinge in the tooth in question. Not enough to disturb me badly and certainly not enough to keep me awake last night, but during the day today there has been the occasional throb - not a continuous ache, but certainly the odd wave of ache. I have been to Boots and purchased my favourite paracetamol and codeine painkillers just to keep it under control. I’ll see how it goes for the next couple of days, but if it keeps up I shall have to pay a visit again. With the move I cannot afford a crown, so the cavernous gap on the left it may well be.

Bum.

I have recorded and transferred a fair amount of music over the past day or so and thought that I'd treat myself to a download of Mark Ronson's version of Valerie since I'd been nattering about it. Anyway, the bit that involved me parting with cash worked perfectly. The bit that involved me getting the track less so.

To begin with, the application suggested that I could pick it up the next time I logged in, except that after three attempts this was clearly not going to work. A bit of routing around showed that the software I was using was version 2.3 and there was a version 4.01 available. Thinking an upgrade would help, I downloaded and installed it. Right. The download I'd paid for disappeared entirely.

I am now waiting and hoping that a friendly email enquiry will work. I don't know why it's suddenly got so difficult to buy music online. I never used to have this trouble.