Lord Sidwell

I love my iPod. It is one of the best inventions (apart from vegemite, the toaster and showers). Catching public transport all the time makes this invention a GOD in my eyes. Thanks Apple. It blocks out the sound of wailing children, snotty adolescents and wankers talking on their mobile phones at the top of their lungs - like I give a rats arse what the Mrs is doing for dinner and that you are stuck on a train/bus/outer reaches of buttfuck nowhere, or that you are having sex with that swamp species. And it was crap. My blessed iPod drowns all that out with a touch of a button. Lord Sidwell is his name, and he is slowly dying – well, his battery is. We have been constant companions for 3 years and he has never let me down. He has been to England, Germany, Austria (and other places) with my mother as her companion, soothing her ears with Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and that entire ilk, AND he downloaded photos into his storage. He has been half way round the world and also to Tasmania! He has been on long road trips, day trips and had gone to quite a few cemeteries. He loves photo shoots, because he can show off how cool he is!

But now, I face a difficult decision; do I retire him gracefully and buy a new one, or do I replace his battery like repairing a broken heart with a pace maker and keep him going till he finally shits himself and dies. Lord Sidwell is like an old gentleman, always has a soothing song for the soul when you feel like crap or a potty mouth when he is feeling spritely. In technology years, he has become positively ancient, like a 3 megapixel camera – but I cannot bear to part ways with him yet. We still have a lot of music to discover together. I have only just expanded his musical tastes to funeral jazz (he gets off on that, or maybe it’s just his age showing), and he is quite partial to Ella Fitzgerald, Sinead O’Connor, Regurgitator, and the theme song from Braveheart. He enjoys, he does, a little turn of the old bagpipes. Maybe he is a reincarnation of a Scotsman. Maybe I should find out what’s under his kilt. If I replace him, is it acceptable to call the next iPod after him? Lord Sidwell the Second? Lord Sidwell Jr? Or do I name the new one something completely different, like Sebastian Donkeylips Esq?

This is the decision I face, retire an old friend and let him rest in peace or patch him up with the magical surgery of a new battery and have him beat on for another 3 years. God, it’s like making the decision to pull the plug on an elderly relative.