24 September 2015

Be Like A Spider

By Chin Chin

There is a large spider hanging just outside my window where it moves up and down as the wind touches the gossamer thread from which it is suspended. As it is only a few inches away I can, by moving my head a little, backwards or forwards, to the right or to the left, so arrange things that from where I am sitting it covers the faces or bodies of people walking up the street.

Of course it is only an illusion. That large man walking towards me has not really got a spider in his mouth. The unruly infant, screaming because its mother has not given it a sweet, does not really have a spider for a head. Perhaps it would be better if it did. It just looks like a spiderhead from where I am sitting and I can get different images by moving my head about. That is how those of us who live in North London like to amuse ourselves.

Actually the contemplation of a spider can be very worthwhile, the most famous case, of course, being that of Robert the Bruce who drew from the persistence of a spider the inspiration which he needed to become King of Scotland. But the spider has many other extraordinary qualities which we can copy to our advantage.

Suppose you are talking about an intelligence chief, for example about Andrew Parker of MI5, who gave a live broadcast the other night. He sits, or at least you hope he does, in the midst of a complex web bringing in little gobbets of intelligence which have become caught on the threads. That the web has to be strong and constructed with great care would come as no surprise to the arachnid in the street, if ever he or she were to spend time considering the point. But there must be other things too, other spider-like qualities which we would do well to emulate.

I had got about this far when I decided to download Windows 10. I had already worked through the sequence of Windows 8 and 8A and, being over the crucial age 25, had found both of them difficult to master. The offer of a free upgrade to 10 had been lurking on the side of my screen for some time but I had never had the nerve to press the button. What if the change wiped out all my emails or garbled (or further garbled according to some of my unkinder critics) my cache of unpublished articles. I had a picture of myself tapping ever more furiously and uncomprehendingly to try to correct the damage until men in white coats were called in and I was removed to somewhere where computers are simply not allowed. Still, I could not think of anything more to say about spiders and so in a moment of frustration the button was duly pressed.

Not much happened for a long time. The machine had told me that it would take ten minutes or so to complete the download but there was no sign of activity on my screen. I checked my watch and resolved to do nothing until the full ten minutes had passed. Still nothing happened and I stared at the blank screen which, in a manner of speaking, stared back. The computer broke my resistance at about eight minutes and I gave an experimental tap on a couple of random keys to encourage it. No reaction? Well maybe I’d pushed the wrong ones – so perhaps a couple more. I’m not sure whether that worked or not but it made me feel better and anyway a minute or two later the desktop came back up. The old windows had gone and the shiny new Windows 10 was there in its place. I was delighted and, puffed up with understandable self-congratulation, began opening things which looked useful. Actually the machine seemed rather slow to take commands so I had to keep pressing on the buttons in the hope that sooner or later they would “take”. They did – all at once, and the screen sank under a pile of glittering images which I was entirely unable to disentangle. The trouble was, I didn’t know how to get rid of any of them.

Feeling a little confused I looked for the “close button” which I used to be able to find by putting the mouse to the right hand side of the screen. It had disappeared, or at least I could not find it. Possibly it was buried under the countless sets of Outlook and the various websites I had opened. I started looking for it in the corners but all that I could access were advertisements – some for things which it is just better not to want. Where was my in-tray? Where were all those carefully saved documents in word? They must all be buried under this dreadful app-heap.

It was clearly time to cool down, so perhaps the best thing would be simply to turn the computer off at the mains and then start again. The trouble was that I didn’t quite know what that would do. Supposing I hadn’t saved that stuff about spiders which I had begun to write. Would I lose it? What would happen when I opened the computer again? Would it still be in a mess?

It was at this point that a child walked into the room. “What are you doing?” it asked, glancing towards the computer.

“Er, just uploading windows 10,” I replied, casually. “More or less sorted it, I think.” I tried to keep between child and screen so that it could not see quite how bad the mess was.

“Do you want me to have a go?” asked the child. For a few seconds pride and common sense wrestled with each other, but in the end there was only one thing to do.

“If you must,” I replied. “I suppose it’ll be good experience for you.” I handed over control.

Needless to say it was all back in order in a trice, this article back at centre stage with the cursor exactly where I had left it.

“It doesn’t work very well, this Windows 10”, I said to the child. “I pressed the button for Outlook and it just didn’t come up.”

“No,” replied the child. “I think it came up six times. That’s the problem. At school they are always telling us to be patient. You should have given it time to react and not pressed it again.” I said something which mixed condescension with gratitude in appropriate degrees as it left the room.

Back to the spiders then. What was it we could learn from them? Sitting on the edge of the web, waiting, waiting… Oh, yes, patience, that was it.