...you should drop by and wonder where I am, this is to let you know that my laptop is STILL not working. It refuses to connect to the internet and tells me there is no modem, no connection, nada and as I am working on my little second pc at the moment, there is obviously nothing wrong with the line.
So, as I have just spent money on a health check, memory upgrade and new anti virus, I am somewhat reluctant to invest more money in any further repairs. I, therefore, hied me hither to the ten year old 
genius at PC World and he feels that as my machine was loaded with virus infections etc etc this may have jammed the driver files that link me to the internet blah blah blah. I understood about one word in ten. The upshot is that he recommends I reset the pc to factory settings and this might, only might, solve the problem. This means of course that every single thing I have on the pc that I wish to keep I have to back up as it will wipe everything off the system. He pointed out that two hours of my time was cheaper than buying a new PC and of course it is, but the thought of going through this tedious process is not a happy one.
There you have it. There may be a period of silence while I wrestle with this problem and if I reappear with cries of joy and loud huzzahs you can relax as I will be a happy person.....
And, just to make matters even more irritating I am one third through Book of Love by Sarah Bower and it has laid its grip upon me and I just want to spend the rest of the day reading it instead of gawping at documents, emails etc etc
Ah well, see you all later I hope.
LATER - OK so I started the backup, slotted the CD in the correct place, off I went. Half way through downloading some photos, a wirring sound, up flashes an error message 'no disk in drive'. rubbish I said. I then went to eject the disk and the drive got stuck and funny noises again. ENOUGH I thought. Got up, put on coat and into car and off to PC World.
I am now the proud owner of a super duper shiny silver 17" laptop. Charming salesman, chatted to him at length and he gave me a discount on a package of Norton (yes I have to have it put on again) and Microsoft Student office and set up fee. After further chat he also slung in discount on data transfer and I left my old laptop with the Tech Guys and said just get it all ready so all I hve to do is plug it in. More RAM, more gigabytes and what is more, special promotion, I don't have to pay for it for a year. This is how I always buy my computers, stereos etc. I have the money but rather it earned interest for another year than shell it out now.
It would have been easier if I had just abandoned it immediately as I have now wasted over £150 on a computer that no longer works but was hoping it could be sorted. Ah well, c'est la vie.
