I am absolutely convinced that the computer industry has us reduced to being victims of a conspiracy. Now, I know that we are all hooked onto the net and can’t do without windows except leap out of them if we were ever to lose that facility but there has to be a limit to the speed of development. Twenty minutes after you buy some software it has become obsolete and two days after you have called the neighbors in to show off your Pentothium 600 or whatever you are informed by their snotty little kid that ,nana nana na naaa, we have a Pentothium 620.

This is very unfair. I agree with Mr. Gates that no industry has even come close to developing with the breakneck speed of computers and that if General Motors developed the car that fast we’d be driving 25 dollar cars that did 100 miles to a gallon. In fact I commend Mr.Gates on this astute observation but what I fail to understand is why I have to install new windows every year.

Okay, I confess. I have had Windows 95, 97, and 98 and 2002 in my system and I have been scared to tell anyone that I can’t quite make out the difference between any of them except for this stick like figure in glasses that squeaks onto the page and does pretty little else of value. Only if I type Dear Sir, this icon of brilliance asks me if I am writing a letter.

So, what worries me is another three months there will be Windows 2015 and the next door neighbor’s snotty little kid will get one from his rich father and then Stick and I will be up the gum tree and seeking retirement. I will be 13 years behind the cutting edge.

The same sort of thing goes on with a modem, whatever it is, that little box with lights on it that gets you into Internet. Now, there are fast modems and there are slow modems and whenever some computer whizz visits my house he falls on the floor in mirth and says, your modem is a snail, it is outdated, you have to get a 256, this is a 228, don’t you have 46 fiber optic.

Have you noticed this habit in computer people when they are dealing with commoners. They use these figures to ruin your happiness and you can’t fight back. Is yours a 160 or a 233, frankly you should now get a 266?

Then like the aircraft people do with the F16s and the MiG29s and upgrade them you are asked if you want to upgrade your system and since this makes you feel very important and in the fast lane on the super highway you say yes and the action is initiated and now you get logged on faster except that just as you are getting used to it along comes some new thingee. They now say the laptop is passe. And I have just learned that “whatsapp” is not a greeting but ‘“what’s app?”

Then along comes a friend and he says let’s go to the IT exhibition so off we go and I buy these great programs for my system and return feeling like a champion after a title fight and wait till I see the neighbor’s son, this will put him in his place.

And into the CD Rom we go, all those terrific software deal , and invariably the sign comes up:Your system does not have enough memory to load this program.

What? What? Call the vendor, now. You told me the upgrade would work, you told me this is as good as it gets, you told me I would have the neighbor’s son in misery and now all I get are these signs on the screen telling I am obsolete, out of date, yesterday’s news, use your USB, transfer to the Ipad, recharge your kindle, your Ipod batteries are dead, life is several cables and little doodahs that don’t fit.

Like trumpet winsock, I mean ,whatever happened to trumpet winsock.

Do you remember trumpet winsock?