Frustrating sort of day

Just as it got hot and sunny, I was called in to work early. But by the time I got there the panic was over and I needn't have been early at all. Hmm.

Anyway I spent a bit of time shifting my stereo to a better spot, in the course of which I discovered that the radiator in the corner of the living room had been leaking quietly on the new floorboards. Yes, the boards that were only recently relaid after the Great Day-Before-Hogmanay Flood of 2000. They are slightly buckled in the corner, but you can only really notice it if you're crouched down with your head in the corner. And the beading is all soggy too. My solution -- based on a hazy notion garnered from something a gas fitter said once about the heating system in my old flat -- was to turn on the bathroom radiator. And I'll call in the gas people next week -- I've got a service contract.

How I noticed the leak was that I picked up the trailing end of the extension cord to unplug the stereo and it was all wet. No, there was no explosion. Phew.

After shifting the stereo I couldn't listen to it to see if it sounds better over there by the TV, because the shelves have a solid back and the stereo's cord isn't long enough to reach the extension cord's outlet from the front. The tidiest solution is to cut holes in the backboard of the set of shelves for all the equipment -- stereo & video power cords, speaker cords, aerial cable in and out. This will involve taking the whole kit and kaboodle down, marking the holes required carefully, drilling them, taking plugs off the power cords, poking the cords through the holes and rewiring. Unless of course I drill holes big enough for the plugs as well. How? Erm.... dunno. A trip to Homebase threatens. I should do it properly, because I know how satisfying that would be. No More Ugly Trailing Wires.

While I'm at it I could also tack the TV aerial cable up around the french doors rather than leave it trailing across the doorway.

Why do we have to have wires and cables anyway? Why isn't everything space-age?

All the modern age has brought us is a squillion more devices that need plugging in. Most of the rooms in my home have one of those four-gang extension cords, full. The computer and peripherals use a six-gang board. Even the phone has a power cord (as well as the phone jack), ditto the answering machine, and of course then there's the modem upstairs with its miles of cable to the jack point in the bedroom. And it's still not enough -- I've got an electric lawnmower that requires a great long extension reel, which I also use for the iron.

There is no plug at all in the bathroom, so electric-shaving visitors have to depilate elsewhere. (There are a couple of mystery switches in there, one near the ceiling and another outside the door. I have no idea what they're for.)

What I should do is bite the bullet and call in the experts, get an electrician to put in a couple more circuits, pepper the walls with outlets.

What I really want though is infra-red linking and cold fusion, a fuss-free power source that shrinks electrical equipment down and no messy wires. Then you could have a antique-looking house, lush and comfortable, with the hi-tech toys tucked discreetly away. I'd like a TV that was like a swivelling door panel, for example. Computer in my handbag.

All this stuff I expected to be here by now, we were promised it in the 60s. Mind you, a lot of it I don't want -- I don't even want a microwave, let alone one of those ghastly Star Trek replicators, burping out Telaxian dainties, and filthy as I am I don't want a robot cleaning my house. I certainly don't want a fridge that orders your food for you. Some of it I thought I didn't want but now I do -- a watchphone, yes please.