There is something wrong with my radio. It's a DAB radio, which I'm not sure it it makes any difference, but possibly does. With the facility to search out and find radio stations this is pretty useful, however it's not so useful if the bloody thing is taking a tizzy fit and showing constant signs of petulance. It used to be each morning I would plug it in turn it on and there would be the World Service to listen to in pretty good clarity. However, this is not the case now. It sounds as though someone has walked in front of the aerial and is obstructing it. On and off they walk and sometimes this imaginary individual just stands there for the fun of it disturbing my morning ritual. It's not a nice thing to do. I'd kill him if I could put my hands around his imaginary neck, but it is not a man at all it's the radio itself. Last time this happened I found the mains wire was not fully connected to the back and it didn't take any effort to fix it. Now though the irritating interference has become stubborn and an uninvited guest who just isn't getting the message to feck off.
So the morning ritual has changed. It's plug the radio in, turn it on, put on my toast and the kettle, return to the radio and begin the first round of diagnostics. Set the auto retune on, for a moment or two there is now audio, it sets itself up again and then returns to the radio station, but it still has interference. What is the use of having an auto retune if it doesn't work I wonder. Toast gets buttered, tea gets made and I sit down with the radio and try moving it to a different place on the table. Eat my toast, drink my tea and see if there is any difference. A momentary laps of audible sound comes out and then it reverts again to squeaking, squelching audio diarrhoea with intermittent speech. This morning in frustration I reverted to the age old give-it-a-thump repair method. This is used by many a man and helps rather to make one feel better than it does to cure the problem. It wasn't a hard thump and a kind of palm of hand juddering thud. I didn't want to make it any worse than it already was although the thought has procured to me just to throw the thing out, which would solve the problem, except I'd have to purchase another one. Till such a time it would be me and silence. With silence probably winning out and breaking me down in a strangle hold of broken ritual versus coping with my own company. Sometimes I find I don't want to be with me but I can't very well run away from myself and the radio is a distraction. What an arsehole I can be. It's true, I'm sure a lot of people have the same self reflections, just some don't listen to it.
Being a Sunday and a bank holiday tomorrow, there is no rush to do anything much. I made a second cup of tea and listened to the thing doing an impersonation of a radio. Yet gradually the audio was becoming a little clearer. It wasn't like I had successfully found a position the radio liked to be in. The thing was actually sounding the way it should sound. The voices on the radio were clearer. I could make out conversations, amazing. It now worked. Probably about forty minutes had passed before it decided to warm up and be accommodating. Maybe I shouldn't of thumped the thing? Or maybe it was working because I did thump it and it was afraid not to fix itself. The rest of the morning was even more relaxed as I did little else and merged into the day knowing my skills of radio repair had temporarily been successfully. Well, we'll see if they work tomorrow, I'll not change job just yet.
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