Return of Sputnik

Predictably, much of the day has been spent in efforts to restore my personal transport and communications infrastructure. Even in the instant of being showered with broken glass at the traffic light yesterday, I was calculating the enormous amount of aggravation, administration and time spent on hold to the insurance company that lay ahead. Incidentally, I've noticed that the one thing you could really do with when your car window gets battered in and your phone snatched, is a phone.

I do now have a passenger window again, a lengthy procedure which involved the dismantling of the entire door. But at least now there's more than a Jiffy bag separating me from the smog of leaded petrol fumes. Since my iTrip was yanked out during the car invasion (hardly a great gain for the robbers; it had been trodden on and was held together with glue), there's a danger of being left without in-car entertainment. This means I'll have to bring my former radio-mp3 transmitter model out of retirement: a bulky & cumbersome device which some have compared to antiquated 1970's Soviet space technology. But what do they know.