The twist of a wrist!

 

Whatever sub-set of minor deities that manage the equitable distribution of gadgets to the pathetically receptive there be, they appear to be working overtime to restore the Equilibrium of Justified Appreciation in my life.

Yesterday I took delivery of a cordless vacuum cleaner whose ownership may, in the immortal words of Sellers and Yateman (authors of “1066 And All That”) be regarded as Right but Repulsive. 

Yes, one needs a vacuum cleaner and one might try and work up a little enthusiasm for the item by purchasing it from a gushingly enthusiastic start-up company on line, but a vacuum cleaner remains terminally quotidian.  Its very usefulness is almost a Black Point denying it a high gadgetified status.  I know that there are people who swoon with admiration at the chunky rounded smoothness of a Smeg (pause for surpressed sniggering at its mystifyingly uncomfortable name) refrigerator.  But I can’t.  Fridges, ovens, microwaves, washing machines, tumble driers and all things kitchenoid are White Goods under the meaning of the act and can therefore not be considered as Desirable Things.  Essential?  Yes; lust-worthy, no.

But a watch?  Especially a smart watch?  Emphatically yes.

Nowadays one doesn’t really need a watch.  The time is all around us in unexpected places, shining out from all those little screens and displays that adorn so many of our pieces of equipment.  If you want to know the time look at the digital display of your fan or printer or microwave or toothbrush or oven or radio or whatever else you have that is connected to an electricity supply.  And most of us do not need to know the time anyway.  What is it that we have to do that requires the temporal precision that LEDs flash at us, down to the last second?

We wear watches because we have always worn watches: from my first Ingersoll to my latest Amazfit, I have owned hundreds (can that be right? Surely not!) of the things and my appetite for them is undiminished.  I already own an Amazfit watch: it is a smartwatch and it measures my steps, my heartbeat, my swim, my bike rides and all sorts of other things that I do not really know how to access.  It sometimes lets me know that I have emails and messages and it has been known to indicate that somebody is trying to phone me.  It has al ‘always on’ screen, a long battery life and I can wear it when I swim.

But today the door bell buzzed (if you see what I mean) and there was a packet for me containing another Amazfit watch, the Amazfit X.  The USP of this particular timepiece is that it does all of the above and it has a curved screen.  At least I thought it did all of the above, but I now realize that it does not have the ‘always on’ screen – one has to tilt one’s wrist towards the eyes and then the long thin (curved) screen jumps into vibrant colour and (momentarily) gives one the time and various activity counters.

So, although it does somewhat less and perhaps a little more (in brighter colours) than my last watch, its USP is sufficient for me to regard it as an authentic gadget and to treat it with the care and attention that all true gadgets deserve and to regard its purchase as a necessary counterbalance to the stolid chunkiness of hoover homeliness.

And I bought myself a new front light for my bike in Aldi.  This is extravagance of a high order.  I have, you will be unsurprised to learn, already got a cheap and cheerful front light for my bike – one of those rubbery plastic things that cost a couple of euros and give a LED flashing light that is sufficient to indicate that you are on the road.  That mere utilitarianism is not enough.

My bike did come with a front light and horn combo that lasted less than a week.  The attempts I made to ‘repair’ the light ended in its destruction, but I couldn’t get rid of it because in some strange way, even though it was useless in the lighting area, it did allow the horn to work.  Neither do I, but that is how it was.  Therefore, the dead light ensured the continued working of the horn and the little rubbery plastic thingamajig ensured my chance of survival on the feral roads of Catalonia.

I did buy a refreshingly expensive rechargeable front light but that went the way of all flesh via a wonky connection.  But why didn’t I get a replacement for a light that lasted less than a week.

My bike is made by MATE bikes, founded in Copenhagen and sold via a start-up campaign on the internet.  As I am a self-confessed sucker for such things, I sucked and sank.

The bike, to be fair, is good.  And I have bought two – which must say something about the product – but even the most cursory glance at Facebook and other internet sites devoted to the owners of MATE bikes will indicate a few fundamental problems.  Customer service was, has been and continues to be awful.  People like me have been waiting YEARS for essential spare parts and we have been fobbed off for YEARS with words and a singular lack of hard equipment.

Until now.  My throttle is on the bike and (I really shouldn’t tempt fate) is working.  The time that a fairly simple part (that should have been delivered at the same time as the bike) has taken to get to me is ridiculous.  But it is here and working, so I put in an order for the replacement light.

The MATE website said that I could ‘pre-order’ the part and that it would be available from the 31^st of October this year.  On my printed receipt it actually suggests that it could be delivered by the 31^st of October.  This year. 

As usual where gadgets are concerned, my optimism is stronger than my realism.  MATE have a month and a bit to either turn me into a hardened cynic or to encourage me to blossom with fellow feeling and contentment.

Which will it be?

 

When is a gadget not a gadget?

It is difficult to work up very much enthusiasm while waiting for the delayed arrival of a new cordless vacuum cleaner.  Admittedly this machine is one purchased some time ago from one of the many start-up companies to whose blandishments I too frequently fall victim, but still as a more domestic version of Gertrude Stein might have said, “A Hoover, is a Hoover, is a Hoover” and, no matter how necessary and useful it might be, it just sucks air – and dust of course.  And furthermore, unlike dear old ‘Moppy’ in the living room, the new purchase actually needs a human to direct it.  Constantly.  So, it consequently does not have the robotic elan of the squat worker downstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our present Hoover hoover only works properly when the head is at an acute angle to the body of the machine – which suggests to me that there is a wonky contact somewhere inside the thing.  As I have zero intention of removing the ‘do not remove’ panels to get to the electronic workings we have the ‘repair or replacement’ quandary that I have (or rather will have) solved by doing both.  The new machine is somewhere in Catalonia in the back of a van and the old machine will go to the frankly unsatisfactory domestic electricals shop that made such a bad and dishonest attempt to repair my electric shaver.

Why, I hear you ask, if the place was so unsatisfactory, will you return?  And the reply is based on a mixture of good economic sense and touching faith in humanity.  As the old hoover is still technically working, I trust that the rep<air will be something absurdly simple and cheap.  Touching, isn’t it?  And you never know, for once my naivety may be justified and even rewarded!

 

Even though I am typing this outside on the third-floor terrace in shorts and T-shirt, I have to admit that summer is over.  There are ‘rites of passage’ that tell you these things.  The official change of season from Summer to Autumn is when the chiringuitos (the temporary café structures that are built on the actual sand of the beach) begin to be taken down.

It was a sorry sight as I cycled down the length of the paseo is see various heavy-duty machines carting panels, tables and chairs and kitchen equipment back to the waiting lorries on the street.

They are absurdly expensive places and they will be no loss to us as we never use them, but to see them disappear makes the length of the beach look somewhat desolate and gives us fair warning of the colder months ahead.

There is a common misapprehension among my British friends that the seasons as they undergo them in Wales, for example, do not bear any relationship to the lived experience of seaside Catalans and others.  May I reassure them that we do have seasons, the only difference is that we do not usually experience all four of them on a single day!

We have Winter.  Admittedly it is not as cold as in the UK, but we do have recourse to duvets and central heating – though not generally in what the British call their Spring and Summer!

Catalans have firm faith in the calendar: if the date suggests it is autumn or winter, then they dress accordingly and to hell with the information that a thermometer gives.  I, on the other hand, have successfully delayed changing my shorts for jeans throughout an entire year.  This staunch approach to truncated clothing led one of my Catalan friends to say, “When I see your legs, I shiver!”  Which I now realise is capable of having other interpretations than wonderment at my resilience to the cold!

 

In spite of my real misgivings about the determination of the delivery company to get my package to me, SEUR delivered the cordless vacuum cleaner within five minutes of the start of their projected time for a ‘second’ delivery.

The hoover is actually from a Bristol based company and, after being assembled it looks impressive.  The next few days will tell if it is practical and whether it was worth the wait for it to get from a design idea to its physical presence in my home via a start-up platform.  I am trying to be enthusiastic, but hoovers are like fridges: essential but essentially unexciting – you just want them to last so you don’t spend any more on them for the next decade or so!

Roll on more interesting purchases, which I do actually have in the pipeline.  After all, what else is there to do in the restricted times in which we live than indulge in a little light retail therapy!