I can’t believe the amount of sweat, Googling, emailing, incredulity, offensive language, despair, and general exhaustion it has taken me to achieve the ostensibly simple task of transferring my calendar, to-dos and addresses from my Palm organiser to my new iPaq one. Something that should be half an hour’s job at the most has consumed, and in a most unpleasant way, about ten hours of my life. If I were (a) sadistic and (b) skilled I would turn these ten hours into the most fiendish computer game. Gamers the world over would be united in their assault on conduits, comma separated files, utilities by professional companies and utilities by shareware programmers. But no.
If you’ve been waiting for me to do something for you over the last few days, I apologise. If you’re interested in hearing my new CD, I apologise. If you’re my manager and you’re reading this, I apologise grovellingly. If you want to tell me ‘ all you have to do is …’ – just don’t!