I am determined to be happy.
And why not? There is much to be
happy about. Today has been cold, but
bright and fine. The sea has looked
particularly uninviting in a positively attractive and sparkling way and lunch
was good. But as I sit here and type I
know that lurking in my left hand jeans’ pocket is a new mobile phone.
Normally those last three words would be a cause of guilty
jubilation for me as yet another gadget asks to be plugged into a power
source. But not this time.
My ‘reserve’ Yotaphone 2 (I am still the only person I know who has
even heard of this make) has given up the ghost and I have had to take it to be
assessed and repaired. I know that I am
not the only person with a Yotaphone 2 in Castelldefels because some guy (it
was from a male changing room locked locker) stole it from me, but I have yet
to see anyone else with one, or should I say with what used to be mine! My ‘reserve’ Yotaphone 2 is my third (the
second went into the pool and was never the same again) and I keep on buying
them because they are the only phones to have two faces: the normal screen you
get with every phone and a second back screen which acts like a Kindle screen
so that you can read in sunlight.
There are rumours and even ‘reviews’ of a fabled Yotaphone 3, but
unless you live in China or possibly Russia such a thing remains the stuff of
legend. Even the Yotaphone 2 is now
‘discontinued’ in the bargain on-line bucket store from which I bought the last
one. I was left without a phone.
Now the last thing that I use my phone for is to phone. Indeed the first time I had a call on the
thing I had no idea how to answer it and had to wait for it to stop ringing,
see who phoned me and then phone them back.
Obviously I learned how to answer the thing, but it still remained a
niche activity for me.
I use my phone to read. I
read The Guardian every day and do the quick Guardian crossword first thing
with my cup of morning tea. This ‘quick’
crossword has taken me as little as 4-and-a-bit minutes to do (my very best
time) and as long as utter-shame-for-an-ex-English-teacher sort of time, but it
has become a sort of ritual and I quite like worrying my way to some odd words
and then questioning the definition that was given as a clue to justify my
tardiness.
I also read books on the phone.
I have got used to the screen size and it doesn’t worry me - as long as
the reading matter is engrossing. I find
that I prefer reading non-fiction on the phone rather than literature because I
think that the pace to take in factual information is slower than the rush of
narrative.
My Spanish/English go-to dictionary is on my phone. I use the Reverso phone app which is quick,
informative and free. I use the camera
on the phone, but not half as much as I want to. I enjoy photography, but rarely take the time
to improve my skills. And then there is
the Internet and all the niggling little pieces of information that one used to
ignore because one couldn’t be bothered to go to the dusty volumes of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, or in the case of my family The Children’s Britannica
or the big Chambers Encyclopaedia. Now,
in seconds information and answers are available with little effort. Although, of course the fact that the Web
gives us so much so quickly is an absolute delight, there is little sense of
achievement. There is no selection of
what might be the right volume, no turning pages, no reference to indices, no
remembering an almost forgotten volume in which there might be a reference, no
combing contents, no . . . OK, let’s face it, much of the process of ‘looking
something up’ was boring, frustrating and very often futile, because even when
you got the information and read about it at length in an encyclopaedia, that
information was usually way out of date.
Now, there is a different level of frustration.
Take my trying to find a new old Yotaphone 2. I have (electronically) bounced around the
world going from site to site, following up references and suggestions,
sticking and pasting leads into search engines in the hope that I can get to
where I want to go. And, just like the
books, I go from page to page, flitting from lead to lead. I find myself distracted: three clicks and I
am engrossed in something which has nothing to do with what I started out my
search for. I wrench myself back and go
on a roller coaster of emotion as what I am searching for seems tantalizingly
near and then electronically crumbles away into the same old dead ends.
And this was taken away from me with the death of my phone. After a day (even with the liberal
application of laptop) I was having withdrawal symptoms. My absent phone was a like a phantom limb. I couldn’t stand it.
So now I am the ‘proud’ owner of a Qubo.
This is a phone that can be hidden in the palm of my hand. It has a screen the size of a large stamp and
looks like something that I would not have bought all those years ago when
mobile phones looked like that. I showed
it to the family as they had come for lunch and to see the Fayre that had taken
over the centre of Castelldefels and they burst into horrified laughter and
then expressed concern about my atavistic taste!
But I am impressed by what this 38-euro phone can actually do. It has internet (though I don’t know how to
get on it), a camera, a torch, plays music (none there), holds my contacts, oh
and makes telephone calls. I am not
going to be reading books on the thing, but that is not why I bought it, and I
don’t think that its internal memory is exactly large enough to take more than
a pamphlet. I have taken three photos
and they seem to be somewhere inside the machine. I am not sure how many more images can be
stored, but I am hoping that my repaired phone will be returned to me so that I
won’t have to find out.
Shop! Please phone my landline
and tell me that my link to the world has been restored!
