Tuesday 28 December 2010

A Good Christmas

So - how was it for you? Me, I was in an even deeper stupor than usual at this festive time of year, thanks to one of those low-level but very draining cough/cold bugs, on top of all the food and fatigue and jollity and overheated sitting around (yes, the boiler was finally fixed on Christmas Eve). But that's enough of the downside; what singled this Christmas out from all others and will make it live in my memory is that I was given an object of heart-stopping beauty (as well as undoubted utility)- a MacBook! Dear lord, are MacBooks really made by the hand of man? It was the last thing I expected, and even while it was in my hands and I was feeling its satisfying heft and turning it over to view its elegant beauty from all angles, I still couldn't believe that it was an actual MacBook - and mine! No more will I have to spend time wrestling with a clunky and failure-prone PC, where every operation seems to have been made as difficult and complicated as it can be - now I am sailing the smooth still waters of Macworld, where all is reduced to primal simplicity, everything flows, everything makes sense... Admittedly I'm not there yet, as I'm still exploring the MacBook's wonders, and getting used to working with a touchpad instead of a mouse, but that won't take long. And even when I'm not using it, I can simply sit and worship, admiring the sleek beauty of this amazing thing.
What's more, I was also given several very fine shirts, a bottle of superb champagne cognac, Patrick Barkham's The Butterfly Isles (a lovely book that I'd been on the point of buying for myself), a block of 100percent cocoa solids chocolate (Criollo beans, what's more) - and a quite magnificent vintage cravat by Tootal of New Zealand, which I have worn all Christmas and am wearing now. Bug or no bug, it doesn't get much better than this - sitting here in a splendid new shirt and glorious cravat, at my own stupendous MacBook. Yes, a good Christmas...

10 comments:

  1. And so you are obnoxiously happy :-)

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  2. I got a box of Black Magic. It too had a satisfying heft but, alas, no longer...

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  3. Don't worry, Anonymous, it won't last - any more than Stan's Black Magic did...

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  4. The Butterfly Isles hasn't lasted long. Father Christmas arrived with a copy on the day and now only 50 pages left. Still, much dreaming of Aurelian summers while outside it's been about minus 10.

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  5. If it's any consolation, I do have caramels left...

    As to the Mac, I'm deeply jealous. I guess it's one of those with the body sculpted from a single piece of aluminium? Yes, I've watched that video on the Apple site many, many times... Will you posting pictures so those of us who appreciate these things can live vicariously through you? Or could you just post about the flaws and bugs you've discovered so I won't feel too bad?

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  6. No, No, No! Nige throws his cravat, cognac and beautiful butterfly book aside to squeal like a ten year old about his new MacBook? Sigh, another champion of the remnant bites the dust.

    I feel like I just overheard Evelyn Waugh gushing about his new transistor radio.

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  7. Ah but Peter, beauty is beauty, whatever unlikely forms it takes - and so little in the (by and large perfectly ghastly) world of computers has anything of the beautiful about it... I could probably make a case for the MacBook being essentially retroprogressive, but this head cold is blocking my brain...

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  8. I know, Nige, and we can't stop progress. But still, too fast, too easy, too sterile...

    I suspect you have read some of those nostalgic odes to the aesthetic pleasures of reading real books--"musty smell of oft-turned pages...creak of the spine", etc. Too desperately defensive, perhaps, but I take some comfort in the thought my grandchildren will respond to the instantaneous absorption through implanted neuro-nanochips of the collected works of Dan Brown by their own kids by penning equally forced romantic accounts of how beautifully the morning light reflected off their MacBook screens in late September.

    Sorry about the cold. Isn't there some modern miracle pill that can give you instant, no-complications, pain-free relief? Well, damn it, there should be!

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  9. Don't worry Peter, I would never dream of reading a book in anything but book form. There are limits.

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  10. 'There are limits' Indeed so Nige, but perhaps you have not reached your's yet? If you read abed, as I often do, you may like to try it with a Kindle. With paper I am starting to droop after half an hour. With the amazing back-lit subtlety of this little pocket-tablet I'm good for at least...forty minutes.

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