On Temporary Weaning Myself Off Alexa

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Today I made a few calls regarding the new home we're hopefully going to moving into at around six months time. They were in order of call the council, the electricity company, the gas company and British Telecom (BT).

Of those calls it was the final one that had the biggest shock. I didn't actually want to do anything at that moment barring wanting to know how long it would take to install the internet and possibly a phone line into the house.

Currently I'd noticed that the supplier was Virgin. I say "supplier" because I could see the Virgin box. I say "was" because the vendor (his parents lived there) had cut off the phone lines. I didn't want Virgin anyway because of their forthcoming closure of the Swansea call centre which I documented at the time.

But we go back to the response from BT which, whilst I won't go into the details as to why so not to bore you was basically 2- 4 weeks.

In a world where things are supposed to be done two weeks before you actually ring this came as a shock. After all what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Talk to the wife?

As it happens on checking with my mobile when the wind is drifting off to the east and Thor has roused the Norse Gods against Loki there is actually a faint BT signal. So things like this blog can actually continue.

But when it comes to those things which require a bit more internet strength well forget it, Which brings us to Alexa. Amazon's go to help you do everything where you had to rely on your memory before. Whatever of course a memory actually was.

Will have to resort to the internal hard drive for a calendar including notes to remind me to do those things I forget to do anyway. No polite voice to do that for me. I have to set am alarm to get me out of slumber and a second alarm to remind me that I'm still in slumber.

All my unread books will have to downloaded to my paperweight Kindle. This will total around 800 which of course I'll read during this period.

Most of all though I will have to get outdated machinery to see me through. That's right. A radio. No chance of France Musique or RTE Lyric FM though oh no. Just a taste of Brexit Britain radio to come.

Eventually I'm sure I'll look back on this with amusement. Not now though. After all the lack of reliable internet is making me need to think.

Until the next time.