Old McGarry Had A Farm

October 2007

I’ve decided that I’m never going to buy another ipod. My negative experiences are solely based on the single model I’ve owned, an ipod mini I bought a few years ago on a trip to Amsterdam. I had to order a replacement model after the battery died on the first one. It wasn’t easy. They don’t just let you take it back to the shop, even when armed with a receipt.

I had to endure all manner of tedium, through switching on and off, system restore attempts, software installing, emailing Curry’s Digital, trying to decipher the support processes on the Apple website, until finally couriering the machine back to the states to get it fixed. Thankfully that last bit was at Apple’s cost, not mine. Thank god it was still within the warranty. Without the receipt I’d have to pay £40 for the privilege of replacing their machine.

I got a nice new model, not a reconditioned one. It’s out of warranty now so if this one breaks I’m stuffed. I’m not completely happy, mind. It keeps freezing, not allowing me to turn it off, then running out of battery. I found a little bit of witchcraft, where if I pause, unpause, pause, unpause for about six straight minutes it wakes up again. I can’t really blame Apple this time though, the metal casing on this one is covered in scuffs where I’ve dropped it so many times. I knew I should have used that rubber case I got with it.

Oh well. It’s allowed me to fall in love with Led Zeppelin again, on a train, London-bound on a wet Wednesday morning at the start of October, at the end of a summer that never even happened. When I occasionally have the misfortune of travelling into London on the train. I am usually reminded of how, deep down, we are all just really animals. Today the sensation is most similar to being some kind of farm animal.Even with the volume bar on the ipod at near full – and let’s be honest, this IS heavy metal, too - the shrill whistling of the many train guards as I patiently waited for all the non-plussed grey-faced to board before me, drilled right into the very centre of my skull. What is it with these people? I thought they only blew these whistles to signal the train was ready to depart.

I now know how sheep feel when they’re being chased by dogs around a field, barking them into enclosed spaces. My chest compacted into a tight ball, panic filling me as I rushed onto the train before the bewildering loud noises startled me further. Now I’m tightly packed onto a full train, and the sensation has switched to battery-hen like behaviour, personal space a dim memory. And I’m sure, as I join the migrating herd of suited commuters when I leave the train, pushing and undulating in their towards the tube entrance, I’ll feel similarly animalistic. I sometimes wonder if any poor traveller stumbled and fell, whether anyone would stop to notice or just continue on towards their waiting desks.