For today I swapped my subscription to Racing UK for a subscription to a smart phone. Now I realise I'm the last person in the western world to own a phone. Actually, I have had a phone for ten years. I just never gave anyone its number. Or turned it on. Or knew how to use it when I did. What is a fact is that ten years ago Anne put £10 on its pay as you go contract and gave it to me to use – “like when you need to use a phone.” And I've never had to top it up.
Of course, for most of that time I lived outside normal society. An independent spirit, successfully following his gambling dreams. And then less successfully. And now the corporate world keeps intruding, suggesting presenteeism is a virtue. That being available 24/7 is somehow worthy. And part of me thinks “Mmm, 24 hours a week, that doesn't sound so bad” and part of me thinks - “Oh fuck off you sad, self-regarding, twee little club of middle england slytherins, don't you know it's the Nell Gwynn stakes tomorrow?”
Where was I? Ah, yes - here's to a pocketful of dreams, not a pocketful of lithium...