Accumulated Thoughts of an Englishwoman

Sometimes I think the old days were simpler.

I have to point out, to be fair, I was born in the late seventies.  This is not going to be a 'things were better in the war' post.  My childhood, on a scale of one to ten, if judged with an unbiased eye, would probably rank in at about five.  I wasn't chewing lead paint off my cot, at the same time I was probably lucky to have one.  It wasn't brilliant, it's not entirely stuffed full of sunshine and buttercups memories, but everyone else with mediocre childhoods has already jumped on the misery market so this is more of a contextual annotation rather than an expunging of my soul.

However, I still think the old days were simpler.

When I was in secondary school, our computer class consisted of how to make a very clumsy piece of software print out a dot matrix banner picture.  I remember hearing about the Internet and thinking, wow, if only I could have but half an hour a week, think of how much I could learn.  I didn't see a mobile phone until I was about 18.  My first computer gaming experience at a friend's house was playing Fletcher's Castle on a BBC.   We had, if we were lucky and it wasn't raining or too windy, a maximum of four watchable TV channels and a fifth that was full of static; all of which only broadcast until a certain time of night, after which there was indeed nothing on.  I had a filing box full of old 45 rpm records that I got from a secondhand store and a couple of storage cases full of cassettes.  Cutting edge technology was recording a mixed tape from the radio.

I once owned, and it was the pride and joy of my life until it got nicked by my thieving relatives (and I use the word relatives loosely) the 7 inch green vinyl single of U2's Hold Me Kiss Me Thrill Me Kill Me.  Wikipedia just told me that particular single was released in 1995.  I feel an inch older than I did before I knew that. 

The laptop I am working on is a 4 year old Dell Inspiron 9400.  My current gripes with it are that 1 - it only has one internal hard drive, 2 - it has enough welly to run World of Warcraft in medium mode but creaks and dies if I try to play GTAIV, and 3 - the battery life is lousy because I often end up running it from the mains all the time.  It is, in my defence for this last, my only main computer.  We gave up desktops just after Little One was born and we started to need more room in the house...  When I only had access to my friend's BBC, it was the best thing in the world, full stop.

I have too much music.  It's all digital.  I have something like 2000 tracks now and it has gotten to the point where I have to delete some of it in order to get it all on my whopping billion gig mp3 player.  If I want radio, without even touching the stereo system in the front room, I have all the online radio feeds to pick from, and that's before I even think about hybrids like Last FM and podcasts.

Missed something on TV?  No more rifling through the TV guide to find when the repeat is on, or struggling to set the video recorder to get the right time if we are out.  I remember when it was cool to record something off the tele in 'long play' mode.  If it's not already on 'catch up on demand' on the VBox then it's bound to be on iPlayer or some such.  Or it will be on endless repeat on DAVE.  Don't even get me started on the possibility of Bittorrenting missed episodes.  If it's a movie that's been missed and it's out on DVD, no wait, sorry, we're up to Bluray now, well, we have a Lovefilm subscription, it can be popped through our letterbox in two days if the post is late.  We can keep it as long as we like, no more get that video back to the rental shop by 5pm, just stick in the freepost envelope when we're done and away it goes.  No fuss, easy peasy.

Mobile phones.  My current particular thorn in the side.  I remember being so delighted when I got my first third generation mobile phone.  It had colour and could play polyphonic ringtones.  At the moment I have just settled down to a new contract with o2, sim only so I can pick and choose what phone I want.  I inherited an unused Nokia N95 and I'm not enjoying the experience.  The battery life is so dire I don't dare make any calls from it if I want to be around for urgent texts on the way home from work.  It's a bit thick.  At a whopping 21 mm in depth, it feels like a brick in my pocket.

Now.  All I want is a flip or slide phone, that I can Facebook and web from, that has a decent camera and an alarm clock setting.  It needs to cost about or under £80, which is the recycling value I can get out of the N95 if I'm lucky.  I'm on o2 so it needs to be locked to 02 or unlocked totally.  Must Have Good Battery Life.  With the massive choice available on the market, both new and secondhand, after an entire week of looking, I have narrowed it down to a list of about eight possibles.  EIGHT!  And that's not including the Palm Pre, which is absolutely out of my price range...

Tomorrow we have friends coming for lunch.  This means a trip to Asda where I get to worry about choosing the right type of green salad. I also forgot to ask if they have any milk requirements, it is such a social faux pas to make a cup of tea only to hear the words 'I tend to drink skimmed these days... but it's ok if you're out.'

Don't even get me started on the choice making processes required in being a parent of a Small and Exceedingly Bright Child.  Nappies? Pull up pants?  Disposable?  Reusable?  How do you come to a decision about which buggy to buy for your child... no wait, first you have to decide buggy or stroller or travel system or pram!  Squash or diluted fruit juice or milk or or or or or or or or or

I am, in an age of consumerism and a flavour for everything, completely paralysed by indecision.  I should be feeling empowered.  Instead at best I feel jaded and at worst panicked.

I think things were easier when there was less choice.