what will i be doing if i were somewhere else rather than living in london

london 5.56am tuesday 14.8C sunny/cloudy 2022

sunrise5:07 AM sunset8:49 PM

i woke early today, got up to pee, and had a glass of water. went back to sleep, but found i could not sleep, decided to get up instead. i am glad the sun has risen allready. its nice to wakeup and the sky is lightening up, instead of waking to the dark. 

had a look at vera, almeria, spain, and their sunrise is 6.58am today. almost 7am, to get sunrise. i dont think i would like that, to wait so long before sunrise .  though i suspect even with the sun below the horizon, it will lighten the sky up and it wont be that dark before it rises. so u might get a lightening sky at 6am even. on the other hand,the good thing is that  it is more often u will see the sunrise, when it is so late. it will be easier to wake up then to watch it rise. and since most will be living by the sea, there wont be anything to block the view of the sun rising over the sea.  i once dreamed of living in vera playa…its a naturist beach.  hence this look at the weather there. its 19C forecast high of 25C today. so nice if i like the sun a lot, which i dont. really. so u can enjoy breakfast on the balcony watching the sun rise. 

but what prompted me to write a post is not to  tell you all about my waking up early, but i saw this in my wordpress reader, overworked man who posted a meme about it, and got suspended by his company which is a delivery company. they extended his delivery route. it makes me realise that is the reality of working. they just pile the work on more and more and expect u to work harder for the same pay.

simon tells me that is what happens too in his work in the supermarket…he told me he had to man the till for those who dont want to use the self service, and at the same time is expected to handle any glitches and stoppage  from the self service tills. but at least, if the queues builds up,  he can call on the others to come help him when he is looking after the tills. the busy times comes in bursts , when a crowd comes in or everyone decide to pay up at the same time, so those who are stacking the shelves drop it and come and help out when he sends out a help call. so at least he can get help from his fellow workers. unlike this delivery driver or courier… but it did make me wonder what my life will be like if i were retiring in vera playa instead of london. what will i be doing to while the time , i wonder? when i was holidaying there, we got together the 3 of us, and rented a 2bed flat, in one of the nudist housing estates, where they have their own swimming pools. i think we spent our time going to the naked beach, mainly. either lying in the beach enjoying the sun there, or walking along the promenade. i think there might be more beach cafes now, so most probably people will be having a coffee in those places and chatting to fellow tourists . and if we live there, we will become a fixture… or regular hangout . there are no shops or grocery stores, or supermarkets then , maybe they do now. it would be nice if they did, then u can go there as another thing to do. i can see that making social friendships will be very important there, the human contacts with others who share the same beliefs of a naturist lifestyle. how easy is it to build  plentiful contacts with all those living there , i wonder? or will people feel even more private than the very private living we have in london where we dont know our neighbours at all and hardly see them. i know when we were there, we never see anyone else of those living there at the same time. we were slight off season, so it might be the real state of things, where there are fewer people around, unlike in peak holiday season where there will be more tourists come for their two weeks. and also our limited language skills, only knowing english might restrict our friendship to those who can speak english, whcih will restrict us in widening our circle of friends i guess. ah well, it is only theoretical now, seeing that i am only going to be living in london , and not going anywhere. haha. 

added 10.21am

my weather website says today will peak at 26C. i thought it was a glitch, but it looks like a african plume is coming up to the uk. whether it happens is another thing of course, because many times in thepast  they thought it might happen but the weather did not oblige. 

just another ordinary day really

london 5pm 17C rain sunday 2022

life is blue. i read somewhere that pilots’ most common sign off is blue sky.

its dark rain clouds today. and i have just got back from an expeditionary foray to the tesco piccadilly to see if they got any bargains. they got huge leg of lamb, quite a lot of it, reduced from £35 to £20. its too much , both in the price and the amount, and too little, in terms of reduction. i wonder who will buy it. these sizes are for family, and i cannot imagine this store caters to family shopping.they are more for office workers buying their lunch meal deals and microwave meals. unless they are meant for the native workers who work there. they would make a mutton curry out of those leg of lamb i am sure. 

i was chatting to simon, asking him when in his store they start to reduce the prices… he said it is so variable, anytime they have finished packing and replenishing the shelves… but maybe about 7pm. but he said they dont have much left to reduce. because the manager goes ape when he sees huge amounts of stuff at their sell by date that day. because it means there will be lots of it reduced and they will have to bring the price drastically down. he said that is why that store , it is rare for them to have a lot of stuff going reduced. i told him once i saw lots of celery reduced, to 10p each head. he said someone had overordered. usually they dont order until there is an empty shelf of it. they hide the gap by filling it with other goods, and since the order will be always be brought in early morning the next day , they can then fill it up quickly. but this tesco piccadilly store is very different. they have 4rows of shelves devoted to reduced bargains. and also two open cold shelves, which normally carry the salads buffet, being used today , sunday for the reduced stuff. i went about 4pm, and they closed at about 6pm, (which is another strange thing about this store. it is a express store, and yet it closes early on sunday) and yet the reductions are not much. maybe if i hang around a bit longer they will get round to final reductions, but i am not bothered to play their game, haha. if they are so attached to their goods i shall let them keep it. so i left without buying anything. 

i was tempted to buy two heads of iceburg lettuce , reduced from 55p to 8p, but since i could not find anythng else to buy, i just felt it might be a bit embarassing to head to the human cashier with them and give them a £20 bill for it. it seems a lot of bother just to buy 16p worth of that. their not having self service cash tills is putting me off buying anything from them. i wonder how many of us have been put off like me… are there  enough of people like me for them to notice it, and bring back self service cash tills??? but simon was telling me they dont like cash tills, because they are always something goes wrong withthem, people will call them all the time, complaining of  something that the machine does and necessitating the staff to come and reset it. 

and i have gone  off eating lettuce in salads, since i discovered that tomatoes make really good salads, eaten with cheese, cold meats, cold chicken, and olive oil with dried herbs sprinkled on it.

and i got back to smell this heavenly curry smell , the lodger is cooking his regular chicken curry . he garnishes it with fresh coriander which really lifts the dish up. so i had some of that to eat.

so that is what life is like here. nothing exciting happening really. 

oh, we got netflix. simon have a friend who said he is paying for family and friends , which lets him share it with 5 people, and he got a fifth slot that he dont have anyone to fill and ask simon if he wants it. so simon has got it, and we can see netflix stuff now. i had been using it to see the series, called the holistic detective, based on that chap who wrote the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. it is a lot of strange goings on, time travel is involved. it seems the way netflix works is that the more u see, the more it gets an idea of what u like and pick them. the trouble is , simon also inputs his choices so his data is mixed with mine, and so the suggestions get all mixed up with his. anyway i had not told the lodger of it, so that his choices dont introduce a third person. haha. 

 

american problems

london 10pm 18C dry saturday 2022

its been high of 24 C today, around 4pm from what i see in the weather website for today. i was actually out at that time. i went out to take the bus to my doctor’s clinic, to hand in my prescription for my heart tablets. i am late for it, as i should have given that form for the tablets to the doctor on 11May. and this is 14 May. i still have enough tablets  that is why i forgot to hand  the form in to order more.  then i remembered today is saturday and the doctor will be closed. it will also be closed tomorrow, so i think it will be monday before i can hand it in.

so i decided to take the bus going in the other direction to the tesco at piccadilly to see if there are any reductions. but when the bus arrived at parliament square, the road to trafalgar square was blocked and the bus driver says they are diverted and will be going over the westminster bridge … normally if they get diverted they just take the road that runs by the river on this side of the river, and not across the bridge, so i decided to just abort the whole thing and go home.

and that was when i met a demonstration that wants abortion rights to remain . this really only applies to america, but as is usual here, demonstrations are organised to protest against things that apply only to america. listening to them shouting their demands, i saw two kids walking alongside me with their parent, and i was thinking they wont be existing, if their parents had aborted them.

i wonder if those demonstrating realise that they want to continue legally killing their unborn baby. they allready have that right, to kill the fetus up to 24wks (about 6months) of conception. 

i think the uk laws on abortion are better than usa. here 24wks is the point when if u want to abort the baby u will have to get two doctors’ agreement . in america, you can abort right up to birth and only need one doctor to sign it. 

and by that time the fetus is recognisable as a human being, and i was thinking if i were the doctor performing the abortion it will mean cutting off the arms and legs and head to get the baby out. if i were the doctor , i wont be able to do it. it is too gruesome because it is so obviously real that u are killing a human being. i can understand why my brother, who is a gynecologist refuse to perform abortions. i think that is apart from he is anti abortion anyway.

but even though i can understand why some abortions after 24wks may be necessary, the criteria being either the life of the mother is at risk , or the fetus is found to have life threatening defects. any other reasons should not be a reason to kill the fetus after 24wks. but i guess being a male it is a decision that we dont have to decide. another reason, amongst many,  that makes me glad i am a male.

i can imagine if i were female, being very tempted to abort. it is such an easy solution to 9months carrying the baby, and afterwards all that trouble of rearing it. especially if i were so careless not to prevent getting pregnant by contraceptive means. though i think if i were female i would go on the pill, so that i can prevent it rather than get pregnant in the first place.  

i am cameraless, again

london 10.27am 15C sunny thursday 2022

i clicked accidentally on my pretzel loyalty card link in my chromebook bookmark and it came up and said i can get a free coffee from them. i am dubious that this is a genuine offer, because i have not bought anything from them and so cannot have accummulated enough to warrant a free coffee. anyway i was going to the argos in victoria to return the kodak camera i bought . it wont connect to my chromebook for me to download my pictures . i think it is the connection lead, but then perhaps not.

anyway when i arrived at the argos store in the sainsburys in victoria, and  told them of the problem, they said they cannot give me a replacement, because they dont have any of it in stock. and they  ask if i can substitute it for another product in the argos catalogue or i can use it for any sainsburys food. well i wanted the refund actually, so i asked for it, and even though the conditions are that i must return everything, including the box it is in, to get the refund, she gave me the refund anyway… merely asking that i keep the box in future. she said so that it can be protected from damage. 

so i am back to not having a camera again.

and at the pretzal booth in the victoria station, they wont give me a free coffee, saying they dont do that loyalty card  anymore and want me to use an android phone loyalty card, instead.

ah well, i am not minded about getting a coffee anyway. and i got my money back before the guarantee expires, on 16may. so lucky that the fault occurred before it expired, otherwise i would have lost my money. as it appears the fault cannot be repaired. so maybe this is a timely reminder to everyone who buys gadgets to keep the box it comes in for 30 days at least , till the  money back guarantee expires. 

i have to confess i did not know they got a 30 day money back guarantee. it was only when i read their receipt, that i know of this guarantee, and that it expires 16May. and i only read the receipt when the gadget failed to connect with my chromebook a few days ago. before that , all the previous 2 similar cameras i bought did not have this problem.

so maybe i might consider buying a smartphone for its camera, especially now when every shop is changing away from paper to digital smartphone transactions. and so many are going cashless too. i noticed that even the big tesco superstore in brixton is having only one cash self service till, with all the rest being card only. so it looks like tesco is really going cashless. sainsburys still seem to be more considerate of us cash only customers, as their self service is still 50% cash&card and card only.

 i am sitting in the concourse of the victoria station, and twice now a man and a dog have come to sniff at us, it is funny that they think the dog knows what it is looking for, drugs i suppose, but how sure are they that the dog is sniffing for those and not just sniffing at food. haha. there was a guy sitting opposite me and he had a sandwich, and the dog was sniffing him very thoroughly and even went back to him a second time … so the sandwich seems to attract that dog. 

update. 5pm 

 

i have been looking at the cost of mobiles, the cheapest samsung is the A12,(it came out in nov 2020) and that costs £149 in argos. but in argos, i found the cheapest digital camera is the agfa camera costing £49, and if i add a SD card 32GB, £9, it will come to about as much as the old price for the kodak camera. i might get that . all i want is to take pictures . its no point buying expensive cameras, when i lose them, or get them stolen(which has not happened yet). or leave them lying about and forgetting about them. buying a mobile for its camera is like buying an expensive camera. not much point really.

as for the cashless trend that retailers are trying to force us onto, i can use my contactless debit card. i dont like using it because it is easy to overspend if u dont hand over cash. but also the other reason why i use cash is becasue i want to use up the old £20 notes that i got before they expire as legal tender after 30 sept 2022. so on the whole i can resist the cashless trend. all the cashless places seem to belong to coffee shops, and i dont use them .

i am sure it is one day i shall have to surrender and go cashless. i wonder when that will be. maybe after sept 2022, when old bank notes are not accepted, then i shall have to convert any old bank notes i got by depositing them in a bank account. or go to the bank of england head office in the city with cash and physically exchange it there. after that date, it might not be that important to use cash anymore, and i shall use debit cards.

i think a cashless society will be less sensitive to price increases. and maybe that is why society is pushing us to that trend. 

7

2 free hot drinks from john lewis

london 7.07pm 15C wednesday 2022

a few days ago they sent me an email saying i got a freebie from them, two hot drinks free to bring a friend to share it. so today i went, to redeem it, though i went alone, as i find it too much of a bother to arrange a time to meet if i bring a friend. this way, i just go when i feel like it, like i did today, and i went to the sainsburys in victoria to buy a pack of hot cross buns, which they sell 6 for 50p. they seem to to be the only branch that sells these hot cross buns, now that the easter season when they come out is over. this branch seems to know there are people like me, who likes them for breakfast or tea, they are just ideal snacks, better than a croissant, or cakes. and i wanted to nibble on them with my free coffee, and hot chocolate which i ordered at the cafe in the john lewis oxford st store.

it was lunch time, so very crowded with people eating lunch. but i managed to get a table quite easily. though i was unable to get into their free wifi, so was unable to surf the internet with my chromebook. it was pleasant to watch the lunchtime crowd, and see who eats there.

the last time i was there was for their free breakfast on 14april. then i was looking at couples having tea, and i was thinking what it will be like if i get someone to share it , and lo, and behold, like john lewis read my mind, and now offer me two hot drinks to share with another. haha. but they did not reckon with me being very lazy to invite a friend. i drank the cappuccino, which is very nice, but the hot chocolate i put into the thermos , for when i get home. it was too much to drink for that moment in the store. i ate two of the hot cross buns with the coffee;  having eaten one on the bus to the store. haha. it goes very well with the coffee.

all in all, it was very pleasant, the bus ride was very nice, a convenient bus 390 which took me direct from victoria to the store. even the bus stop was right outside the store. it was raining, but it did not matter as i had my umbrella, and i was inside the bus too, looking at the wet scene on the top deck. but i was thinking this is a far cry from my young days when i would go to the gay coffeeshop in old compton st in soho and have a cake and cappucino and chat with other gay guys who are there and cruise them. there was all that excitement then. haha. this was in the 80s. ah the good ol days. but enough of that. 

now it seems everyone is getting old with me. where are the young people now? i dont seem to see them at all. unlike in the asian countries, whenever i see the live webcams that show street life in those countries there are so many young people, kids lots of them, and teens. unlike scenes from western countries where you see a lot of old people and people in their 30s. 

 

life is very good really

london 6.40pm 21C cloudy monday 2022

i just now saw an advert by macdonalds and saw featured their coffee for 99p. that must be the cheapest price for a coffee in a commercial business. i wonder if it is a cappuccino, or latte. or just an ordinary white coffee. if it is the former , it would be even better value. but i wont be tempted to buy, because i like my own home made instant coffee. haha. and the cost to me is like pennies. i can buy a 100mg bottle of instant coffee for 70p. (now increased to 83p, tesco’s stockwell brand, increased from 75p , though asda still sells their instant coffee smartprice brand at 70p, but how long they can keep it to that price is another thing. the stockwell coffee is rather good actually, it is quite strong coffee.)

update i checked  the macD’s coffee price,  and it is for a white or black filtered coffee. you could make it yourself and bring it in a thermos. so why do people buy it? it is a mystery, if i know the secret, i would be a rich man now. haha. macD have obviously found out the secret. (it is the caffeine addiction that afflicts quite a lot of people … that is the secret). 

 

this morning i must be looking miserable, because simon asked me if i am allright. when i said i am, he said, really seriously are u allright? looking very concerned, so i laughed and held out my arms and hugged him, saying i am really. maybe i dont look like i am happy, because i got old man grumpy face. i said. but really life is very good for us . and he agreed, saying he never felt so happy now that he had left his old job. i did not realise he was under so much stress, but it seems he did. it was the people he had to work with it seems, not so much stress from doing the job. i dont understand why he is so bothered by them, but then, when i was working, i dont have that problem. but anyway now he is out of it, and very happy too. now i come to think of it, i dont realise how lucky i am to be in a profession where i can control my work conditions . and never have to work under someone i dont like, or with others which i cannot get along. 

 

artis , giving us free bowl of salad and meat top-up

london 1pm 21C sunny friday 2022

steve sent me their instagram post , saying  they are giving away free bowls to their new store in nottinghill gate. and they are giving a bag of freebies too. including a cbd infused soft drink.and another soft drink , cold pressed fruits.  cbd is some extract from cannabis. there is a bottle of peanut butter too.

i arrived early and sat on the bench just outside the cafe, and then i saw 3 of our gang, waving to me across the doorway, they were queueing up on the other side. well they all came over to me as i got seats. later the owner came out and said he have to shift us back to the other side. i guess so we wont block the souvenir store, so we all went over. it was a nice bright sunny day to queue. and we could catch up on each others news.  anyway they gave us menus, i thought we got no choice and that they will just give us their choice, but it seems when we went in , that it is all the ingredients laid out in containers,  and they make it up on the spot for each customer.  lucky they gave us menus to look, so we know what those names of salads contain.  because some were warm salads, containing rice, some got kale, so i chose the aztec, and i was pleased that she added a half avocado, because that was not mentioned; that is nice. and i asked for the pickled ginger, not sure if that is included but she gave it to me. though when i ate the salad later, i found out that avocado dont really have any taste.it was just perfect , at just the right stage of ripeness for the creamy rich texture to be apparent. i think u eat it for its texture. 

then i heard from some of our gang who were ahead of me that the freebie includes free topups. so we can get meat topups, (which cost extra, about £3) but it will be free today. glad i heard them because i could not hear what the servers were saying, but since i know it is included in the freebie, i just shouted out chicken… haha. so it is a generous offer of freebie that they are giving us today. and they gave us a goodie bag whcih has more stuff in it.

also,in it there was a voucher for 50% for our next order. which i thought is the right thing to do, really. the bowls cost about £7-£8. though these with top ups will be £3 more. so it is a nice freebie. and for those who live nearby or even if not, and want to eat it again, they can have another go at it, by paying half price. i thought that  is a good marketing ploy. 

i took mine to victoria, where i need to change to get home, but decided to eat it on the sunny benches by the nova building in victoria. it was a very filling bowl, there was sweet corn and black eyed peas to bulk it up and the meat gave it a nice touch. they said it got coriander dressing, but i could not taste it. 

i drank one of the drinks they gave, a red coloured drink , whcih says it has cold pressed lemons, and lots of other fruits. though i could not taste any of them. well that happens, when u mix all the fruit juices up, you lose all the different flavours, because fresh fruits juice flavour is so mild, they just get lost when u mix them up. best to keep to one fruit, if u want to taste it. 

 

a group of mimosa trees in bloom

london 8.20am 13C sunny friday 2022

they smell delicious too. whcih seems rather appropriate why they are planted over the recycling bins, or rather why the recyling bins are sited just here.

the age of the unreal

london 7.38am 12C cloudy wednesday 2022

if u read the news, you will come to realise there are unreal things that people believe in that has taken over the mainstream .as a contrast, take  for eg, the belief that the earth is flat, that is one belief that is not accepted by the mainstream. you could say that is obvious, because we can all see it is round. but the following beliefs in this article says that even facts do not matter , when it comes to beliefs. 

and this article ,  very effectively sums them up and collects them in one place. it calls this time we live in  the age of  the absurd. i call it unreal, a world where black is white. it is orwellian. a world that is written up in the book 1984, by orwell. the question i want to ask is why are these ones accepted by the mainstream. who says so, or rather who in the world of education, news and media, big business, social media facebook, twitter, and internet portals like google decide that it is real and advocates it.

i was thinking how come it was not like that when gays came out. no one in the mainstream  accepted it, unlike accepting trans people now. the big difference with which the world treated gays coming out   as opposed to trans coming out is amazing really. though u have to admit it was not overnight… this change in attitude to trans people. for years they were villified, then now , suddenly they are the heroes. i wonder what changed, is it social media? the role of influencers may be the biggest reason why it has altered. you might ask surely not, no one can be that influential … but collectively they might wield great influence.

but maybe there is a backlash coming, when the rest of the world becomes aware how disruptive to our society.  these ideas are breaking up society. and maybe people will vote out those who are advocating the drastic new ideas. for eg, what to teach the kids, many in america are now confronting school boards, who say parents should not have a say as to what the schools teach their kids… in the past most parents will say let the schools have a curriculum that determines what kids get taught and let them decide as parents may not have the time, nor the inclination to do it.  until they realise what they are taught are very extreme. in the past the school curricula is mainstream, advocating only mainstream ideas and what the society in general accepts as the norm. but now the parents realise that someone is causing the curricula to change and advocate extremely outlying ideas . 

my list , what i think some people think is the real thing.

genders. they dont exist. this means no such thing as male and female sports prizes. just have one prize category for everyone.

race. if u are white u are racist

killing unborn babies is ok

diversity. it means no whites allowed

capitalism is evil

this is his list

1) Men give birth.

2) It is fair to allow biological men to compete in women’s sports.

3) Defund police and crime will decrease.

4) Racial segregation is antiracist. Opposition to racial segregation is racist.

5) “Latinx.”

6) Your race matters.

7) Diversity is strength. 

8) Free speech does not allow for hate speech.

9) You’re not a human being until you’re born.

10) Capitalism is evil.

11) America is systemically racist.

link

update 9am thursday 5.5.22

this

this article reminds me that all this refers to the usa. i dont think the uk is as deeply affected. at least i hope not. people in uk i hope have not lost all sense of proportion.

perhaps what is happening in the usa is that social media magnifies the few who are active in this new viewpoint, and so get mentioned more and so makes us all think it is widespread amongst the general population. maybe it is not so, and the general american public dont care about it at all.  

london 9.38am 13C sunny monday 2022

people have been saying switch off electrical gadgets to save electricity, and i always thought that was true , until i read this today. saying don’t switch off your wifi router. i used to switch it off, until i moved to shell broadband, and they gave me a new router and told me dont switch it off for 2 wks after it has been newly installed so they can monitor the speed . then when the 2wks were gone i just left it on, and ever since the lodger came in, there was more reason to keep it on all the time, as a service to the lodger. and that is why i have not switched it off at night. it turned out to be a good move, because it seems they do their upgrades at night, and if u switch it off, you wont get that upgrade to your router and u will miss out. this shell broadband provider is very good, they sent me an email recently saying they wont increase the tariff, whcih they can do each april, because that is when they are allowed to increase it by rate of inflation. but they said they wont this year to help out . rather nice of them i think. it is only £22 a month unlimited data too. 

it seems this blanket advise to switch off electrical gadgets may not be valid anymore, and the savings are not that much. that article says it is based on a 7yr old study in california and a lot of new gadgets are more efficient nowadays. 

i have been following some families in the phillipines who are on live webcam, and one of them says her broadband cost 50euros a month and she says she is not getting enough money from being live broadcast of her family 24hrs, to pay for it, and asking for donations. i am really surprised the broadband is so expensive whre she lives, (in manila). who can afford it? that country is supposed to be a third world country and yet, it has such expensive broadband. and yet, i can see everyone has a smartphone, even the children. so how are they getting connected ? do all of them have expensive phone plans? or is phone plans cheaper than having wifi.

here i read of one guy trying to live without his smartphone for 2wks. it turned out he just like to twitter, that is how he feels connected to people. and being whatsapped with his friends makes him feel wanted. reading it i thought why he did not mention that you can use a chromebook or laptop to access all those things that he used his smart phone for, like using maps, finding events, knowledge, facts etc, banking, etc etc, .perhaps he does not know that he dont need a smartphone to get all those services , he can use a laptop or chromebook. but of course a smartphone being smaller is easier to carry around. there are plenty of people who have skipped the laptop stage and gone straight to the smartphone stage.  the only thing that smartphone can do that the chromebook , laptops etc cannot is send and receive phone calls, send text messages, whatsapp, get email notification, and it is easiest way to send to twitter, facebook etc allthe social media. that might be its biggest attraction. the ease of sending and receiving social media posts. that kind of low grade thing that most of us can do without, really. and that is what i have come to realise.

in that article it mentioned about 50% of over 65s have no smartphone. i cannot believe that because i have all my friends got smartphones, and most of my friends are over 65s. i am the only one i know who have no smartphone. i know plenty of over 65s have jumped the tech journey and gone from knowing nothing of the internet to a smartphone , without going through a laptop stage.

 

i remember simon telling me that he got irritated with the beeps whenever an email gets notified to him. so much so that he switched off the phone, as he cannot select what email he wants to be notified… instead of getting all and everyone of the spam emails being sent to him. so his phone is constantly beeping at him.

i have been mulling over getting a smartphone because i thought i was missing out… esp with getting the QR codes of businesses that will give me a free food voucher in return for filling a survey. but i realise it is not that worthwhile a reason to get a smartphone.