Laptop...

My laptop is starting to misbehave. Performance is sluggish at best. It can even ‘hang’ for half a minute while I’m doing something as simple, and using as little power, as writing. It can take five minutes - rather than, say, ten seconds - to get online, leaving me to stare impotently at that spinning beach-ball. If I want the machine to hold its charge on cold nights, I have to slip it inside my sleeping bag and keep it warm. My theory is that Apple products are programmed to slow down and develop faults after about five years, to encourage punters like me to wander into an Apple store and buy the latest model.

Honister Pass in Cumbria, licensed today...