A mild electronic shock

Don't you just love the electronic world we live in? I do not want to get in too deeply. It can get very complicated, very quickly. I do want and wish to embrace as much as my ageing and limited intelligence will allow, dependent upon cost and personal need, naturally

Strong parameters I know, but nonetheless the scope of satellite navigation, PCs for music and photography, mobile phones and digital scanners and cameras leave me breathless at their ease and flexibility.

I give a simple and recent example of their wonder. A group of us were taking a walk in the countryside around Oundle in Northamptonshire - a county perhaps overlooked and described by a woman in the Tourist Information as the Cotswolds without being twee. We were mapless and the sky was cloudless, but after about thirty to forty minutes, we collectively decided that there should be a turning soon as we had been trekking for sometime away from the car park without any evidence about how to get back without tediously retracing our steps.

Had this been autumn the hedges would be thick with blackberries, but the one we were pleased to see on this beautiful summer evening was an electronic Blackberry. A GPS app soon located the device and us on an aerial photograph using the Google Earth app - apparently the word application is too tedious for use now. It showed us next to field boundary and there it was! We were able to plot the continuation of the walk to a successful outcome. Trish did wonder what would happen if we waved. Would the Blackberry would be able to see us do so. That would be something. One day in a shop soon no doubt.

But where technology leads, there are some with a heavier tread. Maplins (hi -de-hi), who bill themselves as 'the electronic specialist' recently charged me twice for the same item . A modest sum was involved, twice, and one of them was mine! (Ho-de-ho.)

A phone call to settle the matter was all I needed. They error was due to a till malfunction or 'crash' which happened when I was buying the item, but 'the electronic specialists' were unable to give me refund in the store. I found this mildly ironic.

The phone call was even more so. I would need to submit a bank statement showing that I was charged twice. I had such a copy from the internet banking service I use. Paperless statements are a little that I contribute to the greening of the earth. Not good enough for Maplins. They need one issued by the bank. So the electronic specialists cannot accept a document I have downloaded from my bank having entered a secure site with three coded passwords. They see it better to have me walk to the bank, queue, ask for a statement and then post it to them marked FAO Sarah. What age are they living in?

I am aghast.