Kids these days

One of the most terrifying things about being in your late twenties is that every so often, you catch sight of a date of birth which ends in something like "2010".

If you're anything like me, you'll like to think that people just stopped being born after about 1995; a time in which everyone was caught up in deciding which Take That member to scratch a heart around with the pointed end of a compass on their pencil case, not merely Tweeting their adoration of Harry Styles.

You'll like to imagine that everyone alive now should, and indeed does, remember a time when knowledge came from libraries, not from a mythical "search engine", or - sod it - a time before the internet itself.

The fact that all our worldly information is so readily available now - to the point where our capacity for memorising things is shrinking - is indicative of a more pressing concern: that there are children in the world at this very moment who have never booted up a CDROM of Encarta Encyclopedia, and magically produced the exact same "research" as everyone else handing in their homework that day.

The same goes for mobile phones. It's not the instant, hyper-connectivity of noughties children that worries me; more that kids these days will never have to search through the Yellow Pages for a house  number and mumble a greeting to their crush's mother,

 "Hello, Mrs Smith. Is Daniel there please?"

...before making stilted, quiet, awkward conversation while balancing carefully on the stairs; an operation that was always hindered by the meter long ringlets of stretchy phone cord which never quite reached anywhere out of parental earshot.

Worst still, by taking their first "I fancy you" steps via text message or Facebook, kids these days will never have to endure the tell-tale click of a phone being replaced on its hook, followed by the hot-faced embarrassment of their older sister yelling "Oooh! Who's MARK? Have you got a BOYFRIEND?" from her listening post in the kitchen.

BT phone boxes must seem like relics of another time to kids these days; make-do street toilets, public drug taking cubicles, an extreme last resort if you forget your mobile - not a place your best mate used to call you from when her parents regularly barred outgoing calls from their house.

And let us not start on TV on-demand services, which negate ever having an all-out sibling war over who recorded over the only VHS copy of Ghost with an episode of Byker Grove, or whose cassette recorder ate the ribbon on the latest Now...! double compilation.

Oh, kids these days. Those poor people born in 2013, whose idea of nostalgia will be a screen resolution without HD.

They're missing out.

Mended?

"You're mended" came the PIB's assessment, as we sat in a cocktail bar late on Saturday night.

The weekend had been full of the things I like best: zipping around London, meeting new friends and catching up with old ones. Friday night was spent in the company of Future Housemate and later, some of her (male) friends; one of whom had caught my eye and attention from the start.

"Look at me all talking to boys 'n' that!" I'd exclaimed excitedly to the PIB the following night, "He's probably got a girlfriend, and he's probably really young. But we talked a bit. And he was lovely".

Ok, so it's just talking - hardly a string of illicit dates or marriage, not even texts - but it was nice to feel normal again. In fact, the entire weekend had felt exactly how being single in London should feel: exciting and full of endless possibilities. The broken heart a vague memory in the distance, well and truly mended.

So when the e-mail popped into my inbox on Monday night as I pottered around on the internet - a name I hadn't seen bolded and unread in there since last March - I wasn't really prepared for the zap of panic that came over me.

Here it was then, the long awaited contact. No subject line to determine what it might contain. What's he e-mailing me for? My heart started racing as I stared at my inbox. How should I reply? Should I just delete it? Why now?

The reasons for the above became clear seconds after I took a deep breath and opened the e-mail. And there it was in all its glory: a spam link. Hurrah for the ironies of modern technology; after a year of no contact, my ex boyfriend was sending me links to porn.

Don't check the other e-mail addresses to see if her name's there. Don't. Don't. Don't. 

Oh, fuck it. 

Click "more". And sure enough, among the other lucky recipients was her name, too.

After a few minutes of staring at the e-mail, my heart beat returned to normal. Just spam. I pressed delete.

But when the second e-mail arrived today at lunch time, in the midst of a day where the to-do list was getting longer while the working week was getting shorter, it knocked me back again, and I took myself outside for a walk.

It felt faintly ridiculous to be teetering on the verge of emotion in Pret over an e-mail about, well, absolutely nothing at all - a warning to undisclosed recipients  not to click on any links in my previous e-mail, his e-mail got hacked, thanks. 

It felt stupid to feel slightly disappointed that it wasn't just to me, apologies with a by-the-way how are you.

It was alien to see his name come up and his words on the screen - no matter how impersonal they were.

And it's a strange thing to admit when you're an advocate of being single, taking what life throws at you and being happy with it, that you might actually want someone else now. Because deep down, you know a ridiculous spam e-mail sent to an entire address book wouldn't bother you so much if another person was on the scene.

Can you ever really get mended until you've moved on to someone else?

Inbox

In the days leading up to my long awaited holiday, life has become a bit of a waiting game.

With no less than eight (possibly nine) girls and two boys making an appearance at some point during the 10 day break to the South of France, e-mails have begun to fly, and my apprehension has begun to heighten. Organising that many people is no mean feat.

Mostly because a funny thing happens when you're part of a big group. They teach you about it in A-Level psychology; that "someone else will do it" mentality you get when you're part of a large crowd. It tends to worsen when money's involved, too. And so it was that after much talk, I got the ball rolling to hire the group a second car. "Happy to sort" I offered last week, "on the basis that everyone plonks their share of the rental into my account before I book, as I don't have £300 to spare". At time of writing, one bank transfer has so far been completed.

There's also the music festival we're all meant to be going to in the second week. "Dare I mention the festival? Are we booking tickets?" I ventured in response to the stream of excitable holiday e-mails this morning, "We'll need to get them before we leave...". The e-mail drifted into the ether, where it has remained; read by all, yet unanswered by many.

Then, in the midst of this organisational flurry, a message from the Potential Boss cancelling tomorrow's second interview and trying to rearrange for next week. Except I'm not here next week. Or most of the week after. I'd rather hoped to get it over and done with tomorrow, then zip off to France and hear the results, good or bad, while bathing in a sangria and sunshine haze by the pool. There goes that master plan.

"Sorry, I'm on holiday until the 11th. Is there another date we can do?"

And I tell ya what: in this modern age of instant online communication, it amazing how quiet an inbox can get.

Olympus in 'CAMERA ACTUALLY WORKS!!!' shock

I spent the best part of three months cursing Olympus cameras.

See, when the Boy arrived in Australia he brought my Christmas present: an all singing, all dancing super dooper 12 megapixel underwater camera. Awooga, I thought. The Barrier Reef beckoned, and you should have seen my little face at the prospect of getting some h'actual photo action. I was all "Ahhhh yeah, I'm gonna get the fishies! AHAHAHA!", until about a week later when I took it into the sea to play in the waves...but it was all 'Nah, don't fancy this', and died. My spandangulous U-tough underwater camera was a victim of err, water damage. Not so tough after all, it turned out.

So I started using my old Olympus camera. Another member of the U-tough clan. We got as far as the reef, then that broke too, citing irreparable differences with sand.

I unleashed a torrent of abuse about Olympus "tough" cameras to anyone who would listen, and added it to my list of things to complain about when I get back (along with Apollo campervans, the theiving bastards. But that's another story).

Once back in England, I sent my useless, defunct Christmas present back to Olympus for repair, with the note 'Bought for round the world trip. Broke after one week. Stick your camera up your bum-bum'. Or words to that effect. They responded by not repairing my camera at all.

They replaced it. With a newer, even better, even more expensive model.

So not only am I super impressed with the customer service, but after putting it through it's paces this weekend, I reckon the waterproof functionality is pretty good too.

It wasn't exactly the Barrier Reef, but at 12:15am in a North London bar, it was as close as you were ever going to get.

And for future reference, that'll teach the birthday girl to leave boys, beer and technology unattended.