Now you can find out why Jos Biggs story was late last week. Enjoy finding out !!

Remember I said that I had an Incident last week? Here’s what it was!

I don’t have a daily routine as such, but I do have a daily quotient of Things That Must Be Done.

On Sundays one of those Things is: Put my post on Facebook. I like to do this fairly early in the day before I have become demoralised by such mundane tasks as washing up, dusting, or remembering to take something for supper out of the freezer. 

So in all innocence I sat at the computer, clicked the power on, pushed his Go button then got up, filled the kettle, switched it on, prepared a cup complete with teabag, and sat down again to wait, a picture of domestic harmony.

Normally the making of the tea and the opening of the computer take roughly the same amount of time. Not so today!

His little blue light was on, indicating that he was conscious. His little orange light was on, indicating that he is being fed the life blood of electricity, but his screen was black.

Never mind, I’ll switch him off and start again - this is where it all started to get weird. 

I pushed his Go button, which is also his Stop button, and nothing happened. I could hear his internal hummings, which indicate that he’s working, but he wasn’t, and neither would he stop - he continued humming and his Go light remained on - he was in some kind of shadowy in between world. 

At this point I wondered if computers can be zombies, neither alive nor dead. However, I wasn’t worried by this possibility - if he starts staggering after me making groaning noises he will only get as far as the end of his cables, which is not far.

In case he hadn’t heard me I pushed his button a few times more, but to no avail. He was still connected and on, but nothing was happening, and by now I’d forgotten how many times I had pushed said button - was he now On or Off?

I pulled out his various leads, but still nothing happened; he continued to hum while maintaining an obdurate blackness of screen.

I smiled at him; a vicious Cruella de Vile sort of smile. He may imagine he is safe because he has an internal battery, but I know that battery will only sustain his life for around an hour. I ventured a nasty chuckle, knowing that he would soon be dead.

In all he defied me for the entire morning - normally his battery would have packed it in way before now.

Then, just as I was thinking about lunch I became aware of a lack of noise. I looked, and he was silent and black all over, no lights of any sort broke the midnight of his screen.

Surreptitiously I pushed Go. He broke into a hum, and opened up, all innocence!

So in the end it was Jos 1, Computer 0. But I wish to point out that I remained calm and didn’t swear, not even a little bit! 

I am in danger of being dazzled by my own halo!