it's dead, Jim

I arrived home on Friday evening, after a four hour train journey back from a meeting in Manchester. [Small rant: as we were coming into Nottingham, there was an announcement: "for those of you travelling beyond Nottingham, this train splits here.  Please make sure you are in the rear mumble coaches if you want to travel beyond Nottingham." It wouldn't have helped me even if I could have made out the mumble.  I had no idea which coach I was in (a very long train arrived at Manchester; I got on it somewhere; the train changed direction at Sheffield, confusing my already weak grasp on reality.)  I have a suggestion for these sorts of trains: make the announcement only in the "wrong" coaches, and tell people there that they have to move.]

Anyhow, I got home. I had tea.  I went to my study to switch on my computer.  Nothing.  Did all the obvious things.  Still nothing.  Dead as a nit.

Well, it is nearly 8 years old, so I'm probably due an upgrade.  So I spent a pleasant time speccing up a dream replacement, then down-speccing it to a more reasonable price.

But ... I'd arrived home (near Cambridge) by train.  The car is in still at work, in York.  I can't get to the computer shop until next weekend.  I'm having to making do with this little laptop that has none of my standard software on it.  Grump.

Oh, what first world problems we suffer!

Still, being without a computer this weekend isn't the disaster it might have been.  I have a pile of exam scripts to mark, and no time to surf do important computery stuff, anyway.