I nipped (or popped) out for a pint^H^H litre of milk first thing – it was a beautiful morning, so I went the long way round; up Princes Avenue, round the corner to Springbank West, and through the cemetery, and back via the minimart I always call JLS (it’s some other TLA starting with a J). About 1 mile, all told.
There was quite a queue in there, which turns out to have been because the proprietor was sitting in front of his computer screen, phone in hand. The screen was displaying a list of options, with “3. Safe mode” highlighted; as I watched, the chap – whose English was less than fluent – was insisting it said “safe modem” to the unfortunate support droid on the end of the line, and then the screen flashed up a missing file error, proceeded to try and boot *Windows 98* (!) and returned to the boot options screen. This happened a few more times before he was instructed to power it off – standard support instructions, but I don’t feel that it would have been of assistance.
I very nearly offered to help, and then realised that way lay madness. So I paid for my milk, and some yoghurt, and came home to consume half a ruby grapefruit, and bran flakes with blueberries – a far more tranquil start to the day.