According to MacUser, two separate Apple centres in the USA have refused to carry out repairs on a Mac because the owner is a smoker. Not because they feel that smoking has contributed to whatever has gone wrong but because their technicians consider the machines ‘contaminated’ and a ‘bio-hazard’.

Due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, that has voided the warranty and they refuse to work on the machine, due to ‘health risks of second hand smoke’.

I agree that nicotine residue can be sticky and unpleasant stuff. But second-hand smoke? So much for Apple Care – the expensive, three year warranty agreement you can take out on a new Mac. I can see I wont be doing that next time around.

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When Internet Service Providers and every other organisation connected to web provision told the governments of Europe – including our own – that their ill-thought out plans for tackling music and video piracy wouldn’t and couldn’t work they were duly ignored by people with the technical understanding of a wardrobe. So it comes as no real surprise that ZDNet reports today of the first result of their idiocy. A pub – currently unidentified – has been fined £8000 for illegally downloading unspecified copyrighted material.

Only, of course, it wasn’t the pub at all. All the pub landlord did was offer a free WiFi hotspot to his customers. A nice gesture, thoughtful and generous and a good way of getting a few more customers through the door. Except that one of them abused the privilege. And the IP address used for the download belongs, of course, to the pub.

And that means that people offering hotspots all over the country will, sooner or later, be wondering if it’s really worth it.

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I’ve lost the link now sadly, but a BBC news item a few days back reported that some researchers have decided that letting your kids get dirty – or good, old-fashioned play – is actually, wait for it, good for them! Helps build up the immune systems. Of course, it’s not that long ago that we all knew this anyway and the extra benefit of a childhood not spent in antiseptic isolation was that we were not only healthy and largely allergy-free, but we had fun and learnt to socialise properly because you can only get seriously dirty outside.

Perhaps it should be a question asked of budding Apple technicians: “did you Mum let you play outside and get dirty when you were a kid?” Although, of course, they will probably regard such individuals as a bio-hazard.

I fully realise that I am setting myself up for ridicule here but what the hell – I’m used to that. So yes – these are my socks. Well they are one half of a weeks supply of socks.

I found them last autumn in Marks and Spencer, bought three weeks worth – which is more or less my clothing washing cycle – and they are great. They are soft, warm, comfortable and no matter where I am, if I forget what day of the week it is I can quickly whip off a shoe and find out. Great eh?

It has been known for my other half to ask me if I could get out a pair of her socks from her sock drawer. This is a bit of a nightmare. The first hurdle is getting the drawer open because socks of all shapes, sizes and colours have been crammed in to overflowing. And when the drawer is finally prised out chaos reigns. You know there are matching pairs in there somewhere…

Being a fairly organised chap I don’t have this problem. And having socks that just cry out to be stacked in day order makes the whole task easier. Then in the morning I can just open the drawer and take the next two off the top. Easy.

A little while back I wrote an item called “Where is that secret place that cutlery goes?‘ and socks, as everyone knows, are just as cunning as cutlery. Maybe even more so. Yesterday was the last day of my three weeks worth of socks and when I opened the drawer and fished out the last two you can imagine my surprise when there was just the one Saturday sock. And one Wednesday sock.

And I have no idea how they did that.

I have to admit that this tickled my sense of humour. What you can’t see is the fact that this was the only bus in the coach park. There it stood – all alone, unloved, cloudy grey sky above, damp tarmac below.

Makes you wonder what it had done wrong!

I have made no secret over the years of the twin facts that I am a smoker and that I use a MacBook Pro. What I have probably not mentioned is that most of the time I roll my own ciggies.

This means I can be endlessly entertained as stray bits of tobacco and ash disappear without trace between the keys on my laptop. They have even managed to work their way down the side of the trackpad. But, amazingly, things still work. Which is not the case for the MacBook belonging to my other half. She doesn’t smoke and probably the worse thing to get lost between her keys are small particles of Green and Blacks. And I do mean ’small’ as any Green and Blacks that might get lost would automatically register as a tragedy and I would have heard about it. Her MacBook, despite being newer than mine and not subject to tobacco abuse, had sticking keys and the odd one that had to be hit firmly with a small mallet to function.

So – always helpful and thoughtful – my eldest son came over to Swordfish Towers at the weekend armed with his compressor and airbrush to gently blow – at round 50 psi – the muck from our Macs. That’s him in the first picture doing just that and the second is an enlarged area of my screen where you can see some of the stuff that was being blown out.

Great fun was had by all as we watched hairs, fluff and other unidentifiable particles coming back out from their resting place. The good news is that my wife now has a fully functional keyboard. We did not, however, retrieve enough tobacco out of mine to give me a smoke.

The picture, snapped on a mobile phone in our local Sainsbury, says it all really.

I am not one of those old farts who wants to preserve traditions. I might be saddened by the widespread loss of courtesy and politeness, I might be shocked that so many people these days seem unable to speak coherent English and I might make a lot of noise regarding the systematic dumbing down of our culture and education. But that doesn’t mean I disdain ‘progress’ – whatever that means – or wish to preserve old ways and traditions just for the sake of it. But really…. there are some things that should remain sacrosanct.

A decent pair of shoes should come in a box. A silk tie should be gently wrapped in tissue paper. Quality cigars should not come encased in cellophane. And wine…. ah wine. It was bad enough slopping plonk into a plastic bag inside a cardboard box – but this?

I am lost for words.