Modern technology, bah!

[Guest hazel]

My iron conked out (probably the element burned out; it's quite old). So I toddled down to the local hardware shop to buy a replacement. Do you think I could find an ordinary steel flat iron? Nope! They were all monstrous-looking plastic steam irons costing upwards of £20, covered all over with controls like something out of Star Trek. The attendant told me no-one makes simple irons any more.

 

I looked around and finally found a steam iron in Wilkinsons that looked a lot simpler and only cost £4.50, so I thought if I couldn't make it work for me, at least it wouldn't be a lot of money down the drain. I read the instructions carefully and it didn't say you had to put water in it, so I didn't. It seems to work perfectly well without.

 

I've also found a flatscreen monitor that someone left out. Where I live, there's an unofficial recycling convention: any electrics you don't want are left by the garden gate and someone will take them. Well, it saves on landfill! Unfortunately it didn't come with a vga cable and the ones on my existing CRT monitors are welded on, not plugged in, so I shall have to buy one. They cost £20, which seems an awful lot for a piece of wire. I'm just debating with myself whether it's worth it, given that the thing might not work anyway.

 

I feel out of my depth in the modern world.

 

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