Harry Potter And The iPhone

I'm afraid my new toy, an iPhone, has interupted my blogging, for which apologies, but it is a little bit addictive.

On Saturday we went to see the latest installment in the Harry Potter franchise, 'Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince'. It's been out for a while now so was relegated to one of the smaller cinema screens but it's still better than seeing it for the first time on my telly. I've seen all the other films and read all the books so I sort of know roughly what to expect, but it's always interesting to see what they do to the books to turn them into films.

I enjoyed the film but not as much as some of the earlier installments and I'm not sure why. I found my mind wandering a couple of times, thinking how detailed the sets were and how much time and money must have gone into filling spaces with enough wotsits, doohickies and furniture to make it look lived in and more. Maybe it felt a bit more 'formula' that the earlier films or, perhaps, just that it is darker and more serious? Who knows?

I liked the bit at the start with the baddies as black clouds whizzing round the Wibbly-Wobbly Bridge and sinking it - in part I was outraged that they could do that to the latest bridge across the Thames and then decided I didn't really care since it was a good sinking. There wasn't really enough mindless magical mayhem but Helena Bonham-Carter continues to give good evil-witch as Bellatrix. I'm looking forward to the next film already.

An oddity about the Harry Potter films is that there seems to be no reference to the technologies that permeate the lives of most teenagers (and oldsters), the computer and the mobile phone, and all the different related digital applications. So I made up for that on Sunday by wandering up to the Apple shop on Regent Street to indulge myself with an iPhone. I've had yearnings for a while - I suspect I just wanted a new gadget to play with rather than a real and identifiable need for the specific product. But hey-ho, I got one!

The simple process of buying one took over an hour, waiting for my 'appointment' or 'consultation' with the rather unsmiling and disinterested staff and then the age it took to do the credit checks and contract stuff to sign up with O2. That's not a good sales technique since it allows plenty of time for second thoughts - which I had but, luckily, I overcame them and stuck with my intent to not leave the shop without a toy.

It took a short age to get the thing up and running properly - downloading the latest version of iTunes, then the latest version of software for the iPhone and only then could I start copying over music and stuff. I faffed round for so long that I forgot to add contacts to the phone and left home on Monday morning with it in my pocket but only one contact number in the phone. Ooops.

It'll take a while to get used to it and the differences from my previous three phones, all of which have been Sony Ericssons, but I am secretly very smug. I need to explore "apps"and who knows what else. How long till I start blogging from the train?

Wish me luck!