Second trip to Covent Garden Genius Bar. The first one established that the iphone’s battery failure was down to a swollen battery. Sounds like a medical diagnosis. Its heart isn’t working as efficiently as it used to - happens with age, you know. It isn’t old, but is a lot older model than they’re pushing these days. And actually swollen batteries seem not to be age related. No longer under warranty. We reject the offer to send it away. Would be a new iPhone 6 but the warranty would be 90 days. Price £300 ($522 CAD). Instead we asked in one of the myriad of tiny mobile sales and repair shops. Bought a battery for £30 and downloaded an update. At which point everything needed resetting and I no longer remembered the password for the erstwhile dysfunctional phone. Deliberately not the same as the iPads.
Left requiring that Apple phone me on said not yet functional phone. So down to Covent Garden Apple store. They do arrange for Apple in the sky to phone me on the little Nokia. But it emerges that I must be phoned on the number I registered with. Can’t put the iPhone’s sim in the Nokia as it’s not the right size. Could I use another phone? One in the Apple store? Appeal to two young Apple geniuses (genii?) who seem nonplussed but disappear to see what they can find. Back to Patrick, nice Apple man with Irish accent talking to me on Nokia. Tell him that weird as it may sound, the two geniuses are seeing if they can find a smart phone in the Apple store. Fortunately he is amused and stays on the line. One genius eventually returns with suitable phone and puts my sim in it. Activate ‘find my phone’ and follow directions through to establishing new password.
Appreciate anti-theft procedures but tell Patrick my temptation is to write password on forehead. He has, with patience and good humour, stayed on the phone for 22 minutes, my Nokia reports. Nokia has no sophistication at all, but is a trusty little trouper. Nine years old and its battery still fine - and if it didn’t could be very cheaply replaced by me in a manoeuvre that takes about 15 seconds. True, phone calls, texts and acting as an alarm clock is about the extent of its repertoire, but it does those reliably, which is often all that’s wanted.
So tube to Indian Veg, our standby vegetarian restaurant near Angel tube station. Good buffet, and very busy, though it’s not quite five. We’ve brought our own wine, as usual, conveniently decanted into little individual plastic wine bottles saved from Air Canada for the purpose, and Indian Veg always happy to provide glasses. They’re lovely. Very earnest in the huge posters on the wall promoting vegetarianism with sincere if sometimes dubious information. Though the bits about the energy required to produce grain compared to that required to produce meat sound about right - and more or less what I was telling my social justice students forty years ago. Also, Indian Veg does provide containers of food to the homeless. So as we’re leaving we admire the Indian Veg coffee mugs - and the proprietor insists on giving us one and is delighted to find it will be going to Canada.
Posts
