iSky

I am convinced that electronic equipment has some sort of locator beacon which ensures that if a component is to fail it will do so in a location or a time designed to cause the greatest disruption.    Thus it came to be that when the four year old iDevice we use to carry  all our maps and navigation systems, travel itinerary and even tickets decided yesterday that it was not happy to be anything other than a phone any more, and even then it had some doubts.

This was a little disconcerting at first, even more so when we discovered that the first available appointment at the Apple store was exactly fifteen minutes after our ticketed departure time next week.   

Undeterred, we retraced our steps of yesterday in sunshine just as fierce, so warm at times that we found ourselves carrying our top jacket as the temperature approached eighteen degrees, all the way to the Regent Street Apple Store where we chanced upon a rare lull in business.    A "lull" in Apple Store speak means that of three hundred employees on duty, three of them had absolutely nothing to do but greet us on our arrival.

Even more fortunately one of these young ladies was a fully trained technician, who was clearly as concerned for the plight of our not entirely useful lump of aluminium and silicone as we were, and well versed in the company policy towards people trying to skip the queue for some repairs.    As quick as a flash she decided that the best thing for us would be to complain to her about the battery failure, that would enable her to skip all the diagnosis stuff and offer us a re-engineered exchange phone with a brand new battery at nominal cost.

Within tend minutes we we back on the street, navigation systems restored, hunting for shade, watching the red buses glint in the sunshine.

Blue skies indeed.