home and back to same old same old

Yesterday We arrived at Bengurion airport nearly 4 hours early, which turned out to be quite a good idea as the various security checks we were subject to took up nearly 3/4 of that time. I can understand the Israelis being careful for obvious reasons, but what struck me was how a determined bomber could easily have evaded the checks. For instance, my bag was chosen for a more detailed search, and we stood in line for nearly 90 minutes waiting for this to take place. I thought they must have spotted my juggling balls on the X ray, but when it finally came to it they were interested only in a ceramic tile we had been given by a friend in the West Bank. Naturally we lied about that and insisted we had bought it on a day trip to Bethlehem. And this was accepted without question and we were allowed to go on our way without them even opening the bag to inspect its contents.

At home today I attempted to download the pictures from my new Samsung EX1, but both I and my wife were completely unable to perform this task. There was a lot of heavy breathing and loud sighing on my part, though I did manage to avoid the shouting/screaming/throwing things scenario, determining instead to take camera plus laptop back to Jessops tomorrow for them to explain to idiotic little me how to do it. I hope...
I shall also take in my Panasonic LX3 to get it repaired. Then maybe I shall sell the Samsung on ebay- I have no idea how to do this, of course, but, as they say, I have a friend who does.

GOOD NEWS DEPT

We retrieved my laptop from PC World today after they had sent it back to Sony for it to be repaired under warranty (yes, we, or rather my wife, managed to persuade them that the space bar refusing to co-operate was indeed a real problem) and I am delighted to report it is now working perfectly. Good old Sony, I say!

FOOTNOTE

I have been following the blog on smileofthedecade.co.uk with increasing pleasure of late, and it seems the august fellows at the BBC have also been casting an eye. Could the author be set for media stardom in the near future? Hard to say (I'm sure they look at a lot of blogs, though not mine I fancy), but I do recommend you give it a try if you haven't seen it yet. It's insightful, irreverent, and sometimes hysterically funny. In fact, it's grrreat!