You may have noticed that the number of typos in my articles has increased in recent months. I am not a touch typist but have learned how to bang the keys hard and fast – having to knock out 350 words in ten minutes with a sub-editor screaming at you to hit an Evening Standard deadline was a great instructor.
The problem with this is that after about a year the letters on my keypad start to disappear. And so on my laptop there was often some confusion between o, I, u, p and m and n. Those letters – as well as r, t, a, w, k and l are now all missing. Spellcheck does not always pick these matters up. And it can be hard to sub your own articles particularly after a hard day.
But salvation is at hand. On Friday night after another 5,000 word day I thought that I deserved a glass of wine. And the Mrs thought she deserved one too and so we emptied a couple of bottles of red and “cheers.”
Sadly for some reason I spilled my glass on my laptop. I did all the right things: removing the battery and putting it in dried rice, mopping off the wine, letting the liquid flow out, letting it dry and then using a hoover to suck out the last moisture. But to no avail. An IT Geek confirmed on Saturday morning that the motherboard has died from alcohol poisoning. It might just be reparable but it will take weeks. And so off to PC world I went.
In all that glass of wine has cost me £439 including VAT. But I now have a shiny new laptop with a full keyboard. Now I just have to locate various URLs, recreate various spreadsheets and off we go!
If you enjoyed reading this article from Tom Winnifrith, why not help us cover our running costs with a donation?
Filed under: