On occasions when sleep evades this ageing but malleable Scrobs, a quick listen to the wireless (through earphones, before the Senora O'Blene becomes truculent and verbal), is on the cards.
Sometimes, there is a great chap on, Fevzi Turkalp, The Gadget Detective, and he really does know his stuff where computers, phones etc are concerned. He also has a very pleasant delivery, which is very welcome at 3:00 am!
The other day, he mentioned a 'life-hack' which struck a chord.
Put your phone, on speaker, into a clean, dry glass and you'll get some pretty good amplification, which costs nothing and makes for a good listening experience!
I'd never thought of this before, and as my phone is more aligned to the old black brick design, compared with new smart phones, I thought I'd ask anyone here if it works?
Why not? If you think about it, when some people want to spy on a conversation in another room they put the top of a cup or glass against the wall, hold the bottom to their ear, and it will amplify it similar to how a basic speaker works. Say the source of the sound is from your mouth and if you want it to be louder, you just make your mouth wider. Any funnel-shape device will amplify sounds by channelling more sound-waves into a smaller area such as your ear. Trust me. I used to wear a white coat!
ReplyDeleteI thought you'd be the first, Goosey. (Love the white coat by the way, fits well on such a small delicate, even sylph-like frame)...
ReplyDeleteFevsi is a great listen when sleep doesn't arrive. He is clever, pleasant and full of free advice to anyone who needs it. A great bloke.
I tried making my mouth wider, and a double Glenfiddich took its place where a single would have easily done the job!
Sometimes, life is just too fantastic for words!
Sure is! Never listened to Fevsi because I usually fall asleep fairly quickly, wake up at about 2am then log off until 7.30am; besides that I don't have a radio in the bedroom. There's something about late night radio shows, usually in America, that you see in films that has such evocative yet lonely plaintive music. "Play Misty for me" is a good example. Re- the white lab coats. When I first started work they were made of a very substantial cotton and so starched that you had to fight your way into them but at least they were white. Later on we had to wear a man-made textile that started out as white then the hospital laundry made them take on a strange hue that was a mixture of light ash-grey and sky-blue. Did any of them really fit? No. Anyway, I am happy to take the blame for amplifying your tincture indulgence and for enhancing your life. Ain't it grand - eh!
ReplyDeleteShould be worth a try but I must remember the "clean, dry" bit before I try it. Mind you I never get any calls on my mobile. Must be something to do with never switching it on.
ReplyDeleteGoosey, my sleep pattern went out of the window ages ago, and it's got to the point where I will go three days on an hour at night, and an hour in the afternoon, and what's great, is the fact that at dawn, there's no need to worry about doing a full day's work, as there isn't one if I want!
ReplyDeleteI well remember the starched head dress of the nurses in the Royal East Sussex Hospital. They had some sort of tail down the back, and must have been a right bind when helping an old gal onto a bedpan...
They all had special belts too. The buckles were so personal, and well deserved!
Same here, Mr H!
ReplyDeleteMy mobile is on a pay as you go contract, and while I have to make two calls every six months to keep the number free for me, I never use it now!
Out of ten quid, I still have £9.81 left I since last September...
It is useful when the Scrobmobile breaks down though. Mrs O'Blene has had the same tenner on hers for about ten years!
Same here Mr H and Scrobs. We both have a very basic phone on PAYG which are only used when either OH is away and want to let me know he arrived ok, or when I use mine to phone home to tell him I'm ready to be picked up from town. If we really wanted to save money, we could tie two empty cans together with a bit of string but methinks that would only work if he was in one room and I was nearby and we had no cats around to play with said string.
ReplyDeleteI havn't owned a phone for 11 years now and its been a relief but school runs etc means one on the horizon...boo!
ReplyDeleteThat'll give you a bit of latitude before you buy one!
ReplyDelete12 minutes!
ReplyDeleteThat's the average time period for kids to stare at the piddling little sceens on their mobiles!
Bloody hell; what a waste of real communication time.
Parenting seems a long way short of what should be done these days. Who cares about bookface or the other one anyway? I certainly don't! Mind you, looking at some of the 'parents', I'm not surprised.
Mobile phones have become one of my pet hates. Zombies walking around town with them glued to their hands or ears, being nearly knocked over because some idiot wasn't looking where they were going, children sat at the dinner table heads down and tapping furiously away at them, and damn things continually going off in surgeries or wherever! They have their uses, but some of the conversations I've overheard make you wonder just who are these people that can't live without checking every five minutes to see who's sent them a message. Trouble is they can't get a life whilst they have them within a six inch reach. They've nothing to talk about when they get home as they've already said it, so it's fast becoming the demise of the art of conversation, not to mention writing letters. As for Fatbook, I couldn't care less about what somebody's just done nor do I wish to see a pic of last night's meal or rave-up. I've got much better things to do with my time like seeing my friends over lunch or whenever which always starts and ends with big hugs, and you can't get those on a mobile phone can you!
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ReplyDeleteI've tried to avoid it all too, Goosegirl and was able to until this week. Work updated to it a couple of years ago. I managed to pretend it wasn't happening but now we've finally dispensed with paper and - well - BOOM!
ReplyDeleteReality hits.
Of the 'Fatbook' thing. People present heavily edited versions of their lives and it's what they leave out that gets talked about. You start on that level of exposure and people start to question the things that aren't mentioned, like Little Jimmy's first year university results...
...then it's "Erm. Can Jimmy stay at yours to do his re-sits ?" (we live near his college.)
then "Oh no. He didn't have a problem. He just enjoyed his first year soooo much. He has no regrets and wouldn't change a thing. Nor would we. We were expecting it. We bought him the delux digs so he could enjoy himself."
Party Central.
I didn't follow the facebook Perfect Life (a la Paltrow) but my wife did with some glee having been appalled at the showing off.
Then there's texting whilst driving. I must add this is mainly young ladies. It's this perfect life thing. People honestly think that they're celebrities and just can't leave it alone.
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ReplyDeleteOMG, you can't do without paper! One time in the lab I was informed that all our Standard Operational Procedures would be paperless and I thought WOAH! Not just the fact that I'd spent the best part of two years writing and setting out well over 200 of them, but if anyone needed to look at them they took them off the shelf, found the info then put them back. Imagine if they were all on the lab's PC? Stop working for about half an hour so you could find a free PC, log on, negotiate your way around the system to locate the right one, find what you wanted, log off, then forget the answer, log on again then repeated the above procedure. My first comment on this was "What if the PC system goes down?" Hey - what a reality check! It's like Kindle where everything's on a screen. There's nothing like holding a well-thumbed document or book in your paws. EK - I cannot believe you've seen drivers texting at the same time!!!
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