As I was saying (or not at the case might be*)

First things first: that asterisk above (*). You might think the phrase is ‘as the case may be’ but from what I know of English - and I don’t claim it to be an awful lot - the phrase is conditional as in ‘it might be or there again it might not’. At least that’s how I read it, so I suggest it should be ‘might’. But as I’ve already confessed, my knowledge of English grammar/syntax or whatever it is - and not even knowing the right word is a case in point - is limited to such and extent that I have no choice but to be humble. Also, I’m not too fond of pedants.

Now on to more trivial matters. This blog entry must be classed under ‘non-specific inconsequential shite’ in that I am killing time. And one way of killing time might be to wow you guys and gals with a little bollocks. ‘Why am I killing time’ do I hear you ask? Well, it’s a longish story but as I am killing time, that might be no bad thing. Obviously, YOU might not be killing time and have better things to do than read these ramblings. In that case maybe you should scoot of an do those ‘more important’ things and come back here to read this rubbish when you are more inclined not to get irritated by inconsequential shite. That’s clear enough, surely?

It’s like this: I’ve just come back from a month in Germany at my sister’s (see blog entries passim). I took with me my Macbooks - or better one of my Macbooks, but I shan’t elucidate at this point - because I wanted to get on and get finished my Hemingway bollocks, but also because I wanted to watch English Premier League and Champions League football on NowTV (Sky) and BT Sports, which courtesy of a VPN is possible when you are abroad. However, the bloody think conked out on me with a few days to go.

So what did I do? Why, I went to the local Mediamarkt and bought a notebook, though I should stress that it was to get on with my writing more than watching the football as I can do that on my iPad. I wasn’t being quite as extravagant as it might seem because I bought a small, 11in Lenovo notebook, and Ideapad 1 which pretty much fitted the bill: it came (as I discovered) with a full year’s subscription to Microsoft 365.

More than that, I only paid €119, and the price was apparently reduced from €279. Well, I’ve since learned I should take that ‘reduction’ with a pinch of sale. Those €199 worked out at £178, but when I later looked up what that model would have cost me at PCWorld, it was sodding £99. That didn’t much cheer me up, except of course that buying it there and then in Germany meant that I had the use of it there and then.

Had I waited to buy it at PCWorld I wouldn’t have had it ‘there and then’ which would have defeated the whole point of getting one. Also, I wouldn’t have bought one once I was back in Britain, anyway, because I’ve got a sufficient number of laptops knocking around I can use. But ‘sshh’ on the point.

Obviously the keyboard is German by my initial plan was to bluetooth up the small keyboard I use with my iPad (and I’m writing this entry on that iPad with that keyboard now). However, while setting it up, I discovered that the keyboard and be programmed for different languages. Thus although the physical layout is German (thus with Ä, Ö and Ü keys and, unhelpfullyt the Z key where the Y key should be etc, once I had got the notebook to ‘be’ and English keyboard an, crucially, because I’ve taught myself to touch-type, it all worked out quite well. 

Well, not quite. The system can also be programmed to be English, but no all of it. Then I discovered, looking up Lenovo Recovery Media on the Lenovo support website that I can download a fully English version of Windows 11, install it and except for the bloody Kraut physical layout, the notebook is British.

The only thing is that downloading what I need, then creating a USB recovery stick is taking a LOT of time. I signed up and downloaded all I needed this morning, only to find that the USB stick I intended to use, at 14Gb, was too small. So off I went to buy a 32Gb stick (and did not opt for one at £34 one shop offered but went to a Robert Dyas and found a very good one for just £7.99 - these things matter). Back at my notebook I then discovered that there was no longer a trace of what I had downloaded.

After an abortive ‘help’ chat with some jerk at Lenovo, I then went to download it again, only to find there was no longer enough room on the notebook’s 64Gb SSD - because although I couldn’t find it, what I had downloaded was still there. To cut a very long and increasingly very tedious story as short as possible, I finally sorted out the space problem, download it all again, and am no in the process of ‘creating the USB recovery stick. THAT involves the notebook transferring al the files it needs - around sodding 30Gb! - to the stick. 

So, here I am in a Starbucks round the corner from my brother’s flat killing time.

Happy?