I hired a car over Christmas, to avoid having to rely on public transport, and to have some freedom while visiting relatives in the countryside.

I asked for one of their smaller cars, like a Ford Ka, as it was only to drive 70 miles and back. But they were so busy on the 24th December, and so many people were hiring cars, that there were no small cars left. Turning down the offer of a People Carrier or a Range Rover, I ended up with a Renault Megane. A proper grown-up’s car. AND it was convertible. Not that I converted it, the weather wasn’t really suitable for driving around with the roof down. But nice to know I could if I wanted!

Things I liked:

Instructions on panel on dashboard (I pushed a button at one point, idly wondering what it did, and the message came up sternly saying “consult the manual”)

Lights came on when it got dark

Shiny and sleek, lovely to look at

Lots of boot space

Starts with a card, not a key

Reasonably powerful, but not so much that it takes all your energy not to drive too fast!

People would look at it and say “ooh”

I have some speakers for my PC.  They plug in round the back, which can mean that if I ever unplug them it can be a hassle to find the right place to plug them back into.  On my old computer what I did was just try plugging it in anywhere it fitted, and seeing if it worked.

So I plugged the speakers into my new PC, and it asked me what I’d just plugged in!  Cool, a sentient PC.  I told it that it was speakers (selecting from a short list).  And THEN it politely told me that I’d put it in the wrong place and gave me a nice diagram showing me how it should be done.

What a clever computer.

How did we ever get by without technology?  How did people ever communicate?

Last night I was chatting to a friend using Google’s chat function.  First good thing about that is that she is in Australia and I’m in the UK and communication was instant and free.  Then I got a call on my landline.  And while I was using the landline, it started making funny noises because its a Skype phone and it was trying to take an incoming Skype call at the same time.  I didn’t try to take both calls at once, but sent the caller a message using Skype’s messaging facilty, to say I was on the phone.

So even though I was on my own in my flat, I was communicating with 3 different people all at once.  One was half a mile away, one was 100 miles away, and one was thousands of miles away.

Hmmm maybe in olden days we were more likely to actually give each other undivided attention instead of trying to do everything at once.

Still, I like technology when it keeps me in touch with people.