The day before yesterday, my struggles with technology persisted until the bitter end. Although I had found a way of keeping my spare phone updated with a very reasonable Tesco Mobile SIM card, the relevant app failed to install on either my phone or my iPad. When I consulted the web, I found a video which detailed the five things you could try if you ran across this failure to install problem that told me I was not alone and many other users evidently had the same problems and the same frustration. This has all of the hallmarks of a badly written app in which this fundamental problem has never been fixed. So I tried the helpline, the number for which I just managed to come across in one of my notebooks. As is often the way, the member of staff manning the helpline had such heavily accented English that she was barely comprehensible but I think she said she could not solve the problem but would ‘escalate’ the problem and someone would call me back. Of course they never did and I expect they never will so as I have a reasonable work-around, I will not persist any more in this direction. But just before I finally come to bed and particularly if it has just turned midnight, I often consult my online banking because often deductions from my account are activated just after midnight. But my browser, which admittedly is ancient and cannot be updated, indicated a problem accessing the bank and so this was potentially a major problem. I experimented with another browser which more-or-less worked but eventually came to a realisation of what may be the problem and a solution. I noticed that the entry from my Favourites section of the browser sent a long and complex string to the banking URL and I suspect that there is a cookie problem along the line. My suspicions were confirmed as if I typed in the bank URL directly instead of relying upon the string supplied by the browser I got straight through and my credentials worked as they should. So my solution was to save a simple i.e. not complex address in my browser which then shorn of its long and complex parameter seemed to work, So that I can now get through to my bank OK (which I do twice a day) then at least I could go to bed and sleep a little more easily but I lost some of my beauty sleep as a result of trying to fix the problem. When the internet works as it should, things are marvellous but when these problems occur, it can be a nightmare.
I learn from the news this morning that it is the day when ‘A’-levels are announced so am having to prepare myself for the usual pictures of long legged blonde ‘A’-level students leaping up and down with delight as they get the results that they wanted. It is not as televisually exciting to see pimply male students showing disappointment over not getting their desired grades but I have got used to these images over the years. It is being said that the results of ‘A’-level grades have gone up this year and I wonder whether, cynically, AI-assisted coursework components might be some of the explanation for this. I remember a cartoon from several years go when an ‘A’-level student announced to her mother ‘Congratulations! You got an ‘A’ for my last assignment’) but perhaps this is just an excess of cynicism on my part.
My son called around this morning as he often does after his keep-fit swim so we had an interesting chat and I recounted to him how I had overcome the technological difficulties of the night before. Then I went shopping as part of my normal Thursday morning routine. I treated myself to a packet of sweet and sour sauce and this proved to be a godsend because I was going to make some turkey pieces into the centrepiece of my lunch but the sweet-and-sour sauce made it a lot more interesting. I supplemented this with a baked potato and some beans, finishing off with Greek yogurt. After lunch, I wondered if I could bring Alexa (smart speaker) back into use on the lounge TV. When this lounge doubled as Meg’s bedroom I had a special Amazon ‘Echo’ device installed so that Meg could listen to some good music whilst she was drifting off to sleep but this has now been relocated back into the upstairs bedroom from whence it came. I just about remembered how to get Alexa operating on the downstairs TV but it does involve holding down a ‘Prime’ button whilst giving voice commands. Anyway, I must have remembered correctly because I got this operating again and can now remember the exact sequence of commands to activate it which I had forgotten. One of the unanticipated bonuses is that the TV displays the title of the actual track which is currently being played which is great to remind yourself of the exact title of the piece which may have slipped one’s memory.
These days, I am trying hard to have a ‘sensible’ eating and drinking habits. So I allow myself one, but only one, caffeinated tea drink as the first drink of the day. I tend to follow that up with Rooibos (Red Bush) tea or with green tea later in the day. For breakfast, I have two corn cakes with olive oil and tomato puree on one and an almond butter on the other. I am also consuming avocados on a daily basis but I buy four small ones in a pack and have one for breakfast each morning, split into two and with a little drop of ‘1000 Island’ dressing in the hole left by the stone. My main meal is always in the middle of the day and then I have a light nursery style tea at about 6.00pm and this generally takes the form of some tinned fruit and a little treat of ice cream whilst the weather is so warm, Incidentally, whilst on health-related matters, I asked my Pilates teacher if she had observed any differences in my physical shape since I have been attending over the past three months. Her view was that I am now practically in the shape that I was before I had to abandon the Pilates classes and so had made up the lost ground, as it were.