I stupidly tried to install an operating system on my computer yesterday, and what should have been a gentle hour of pointing and clicking, development and discovery, ended up being 7 hours of calls to Apple technical support and swearing. It turns out that one of my “memory modules” is “faulty”. Who would have thought it, eh. At the absolute nadir I ended up staring at a machine with a blank hard disk which refused to start up from any CD. I envisaged having to switch back to my old Mac, which was sitting in its box on the other side of the room, but in a crazy moment of faith in technology I'd put it up for sale on eBay moments before the install hell began. I was already receiving scamming emails, including one from someone with zero “eBay feedback” asking me to end the auction and meet him on a motorway service station “somewhere on the M25″ where he would hand over far less than the asking price in used fivers. I replied, telling them I didn't have a driving licence. Let's wait and see how he deals with that piece of information.

To get over the stress, I left the house and went to watch Hall & Oates in concert at the Hammersmith Apollo. The amount I've gone on about Hall & Oates in the last year or so, you might be surprised that I didn't make a bigger fuss about this impending event; the reason might be because their new album is a set of horribly pedestrian cover versions. But I was still reasonably excited. As we entered the venue, we were flanked on all sides by large couples in their 40s and 50s, for whom the song “Private Eyes” symbolised a moment of glory, a time when their buttocks were firmer, when their skin was tauter, when John Nott was Secretary Of State for Defence. At 7.58pm Jenny bought a Southern Comfort and Diet Coke and a plastic bottle of Grolsch. It cost ten quid. They then promptly shut the bar while we were still reeling from the lack of change. In a state of shock we went to sit in seats O50 and O51.

Hall & Oates took the stage, and the audience rose as one to greet their heroes, and then sat down again, quietly. “It's great to be back,” said Darryl Hall, conveniently leaving out the fact that he lives in London – or, rather, “has a home” in London. When people ask me in future where I live, I've decided to say “well, I have a home in London…” implying, of course, that I also have one in Hawaii. But, of course, if they follow that up with the question “Do you also have a home in Hawaii?” I'll say “no”. I can't tell outright fibs.

They started with the familiar Tamla Motown swing of “Maneater”. Two seats away, a large woman in a tight purple top stood up, gyrating wildly. There's always one, isn't there… When I went to see Steely Dan 5 years ago, they played “Peg” and one solitary person – in the whole of Wembley Arena – stood up, in order to move their feet in time to the music. Not wishing to save face, she continued for the whole song, not realising that The Dan, in their wisdom, had cunningly inserted a 3 minute drum solo. Haha. The purple lady certainly wasn't going to have her night ruined by her husband, who was tugging at her arm and asking her to sit down. She pulled her arm away and shot him a filthy look, as Darryl sang “Whoah, here she comes, she's a Maneater…” The husband shrank back into his seat, suitably chastised.

The 7-piece band sounded fantastic, and looked terrible. There was so much shooting of cheeky glances across the stage, so much self indulgent horseplay, pointing and winking, you had to shut your eyes for large portions of each song. The worse offender was the bass player, one Mr T-Bone Wolk, who ended every bass run with a look at the audience which said “Shucks, did I really manage to play that?” Hall & Oates, to their credit, themselves kept well out of it. Oates, in particular, conducted himself with masterful restraint.

They played a fine selection of their greatest hits – including “Say It Isn't So”, “Sara Smile”, “She's Gone” – reminding us that, despite quite large abarrations across patchy albums, they can write some stunning songs. As they segued into “I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)”, the audience surged forward into the aisles in order to frug arhythmically. It looked like the worst disco you've ever seen. Or like a wedding reception that no-one had bothered dressing up for.

Darryl Hall is a quite incredible singer, but with that gift comes a problem; he gets bored easily. He's not content to sing the hits as we know them, he improvises wildly arong the original melody in order to keep himself engaged with the material. It's an infuriating habit. Danny Baker often tells of the time he went to see the reformed Steely Dan in the late 90s, and walked out during “Reeling In The Years”, because they'd carefully re-worked it into an oblique jazz-tinged version. I felt the same last night during a barely recognisable version of “Kiss On My List”, but I didn't walk out, just shouted out “sing the f*cking tune, Darryl!” in a loud bit when no-one could hear me. Behind me, two people clapped along furiously. One in each ear. It was like having your head imprisoned inside a malfunctioning early 80s drum machine.

Afterwards we went for a drink. Jenny wanted a glass of wine. “I'm afraid we have no wine glasses,” said the barman. “Oh, OK. What have you got?” He held up a pint glass, looking at me hopefully. “Aye, that'll do, ” I said. “They do say that wine tastes better out of beer glasses, in any case,” I added. “Really?” “No.” I stuck in two plastic straws and went to sit down.

My posts are getting far too long.