Back in a Bit

Somehow, I’ve become one of them.

The first mistake, I think, was to buy a Mac. My reasoning at the time, I maintain, was perfectly reasonable: having worked with computers for more than a decade, I was thoroughly sick of looking at their insides. So when a well-dressed bunch of Californians offered a sexy-looking powerhouse of a laptop that was, most importantly, welded closed, I handed over my credit card on bended knee. Even though it’s no more reliable than anything I had before, being able to overcome the urge to explore its irritating nuances down to the last component is an enormous relief. I continue to earn a living by fixing difficult problems but, in my head, keeping my own laptop working is someone else’s problem. Hoorah! But the Californians won’t let it end there. The laptop may be a silver box full of wires and circuit boards, but they insist on going around telling everyone it’s a “lifestyle choice”.

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1. Put your bad habits to a good use. When in the smoking carriage, be sure to smoke an awful lot. This will guarantee that nobody sits anywhere near you, and you earn yourself some much-contested legroom. For non-smokers, overly loud snoring can have the same result, but is arguably better for you. The snoring thing works even better if you apparently wake suddenly shouting “WHERE ARE WE?!”

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As a general rule, I try to avoid blogging stuff that other people have published already. This rule is broken only if it’s groundbreakingly significant, or if I can add something to it. On that note, I apply the latter: Catherine found us some glorious variations of the London tube map, specifically one showing the relative geographic locations of the lines and stations. Then, Dan wondered why London Underground generally used schematic versions of the map—particularly as the geographic ones are really not that difficult to comprehend. As far as my reliable sources have led me to believe, the answer is security—London Underground would prefer it if people didn’t know where everything actually was. This became gospel during the frequent bomb attacks on the British public transport network, particularly in the capital, by the IRA during the Eighties. There now, you can all sleep a little easier.