Years ago I used to get all the latest gadgets as soon as they came out - including a Sony Betamax video player and a Sony Video camera that needed a team of native bearers to carry it; the best Technics Hi Fi that money could buy and the Nokia mobile (pictured below) that cost an arm and a leg from Telecom Eireann back in 1996! These days I'm more than happy to let it all pass me by especially when it comes to mobile phones....but my 13-year old has decided that it's time to upgrade me.

It started at Christmas when he gave me a strange Sony Ericsson (the small black one) to replace my lovely silver phone from the same company. My silver T303 had served me well for about 8 years (€30 new) but was starting to give up mechanically - i.e. many of the buttons were becoming unresponsive - and I knew that the inevitable was facing me. However, the new black Sony Ericsson was a disaster - a phone with a joy stick! I couldn't manage it all and mercifully my son further upgraded again me last week with a strange new (second-hand) LG phone.
This is a strange yoke altogether and all the scrolling, pinching and other strange things leaves me baffled but I was able to go on
eBay and
scrum.com with it yesterday - on the train! He installed
WhatsApp on it and I'm even able to use that... after a fashion. Sadly it will not end here as he is determined to complete his agenda and get me onto a serious smart phone before much longer.
This
Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch is kind of like what happens to me when I try and answer a call on the latest phone.
I still prefer my landline for phonecalls and my trusty laptop to all this new fangled gadgetry but there's no stopping my son. Any other technophobes under pressure out there?