How many kettle leads do you own?

I own loads. I've got so many of them, I can't even put an estimate on the number. Impressive, huh?

But there is an sinister and evil development afoot in the world of kettles: many of them are not now operated with kettle leads. As I discovered to my chagrin last night.

My friend Dave, ex drummer of wonderful band the Kenny Process Team, has acquired an old Power Mac… a 6500 or something. Ancient. He's hoping to use it for a bit of digital audio. So Keith and I went round there to put some software on it, and set it up. I knew that the monitor he had didn't connect with the mac, so I took a VGA adaptor. Stay with me, it gets even more tedious.

Got there: the VGA adaptor I brought is female to male, instead of vice versa. Lots of wailing and misery, as he lives in the middle of Wanstead and I, as ever, reside in Tooting. It's a long way to have travelled for a cup of tea. Keith saved the day by volunteering to drive to his house in Walthamstow and pick up HIS monitor. He came back after 45 mins, lugged it upstairs. No kettle lead. “Dave, can you find me a kettle lead to get this monitor going?” No. None. Nada. No kettle leads to be found, especially not attached to a kettle.

Keith drives all the way back to Walthamstow to fetch a kettle lead. Comes back after 45 minutes. Plug it in, and get going at about 10.15pm. Discover that the mac already contained the software Dave needed.

Goddammit.

I realise I haven't been entirely consistent with my use of tenses above, and for that I apologise. My credit is about to run out at The Old Easy Internet Saloon.