When it comes to new technology my number is up - Fiona Duff
I am beginning to wonder if I should be allowed out on my own. I often start driving somewhere and then suddenly realise that I am heading in a different direction altogether
Mind you, I have no internal satnav and have always get a bit confused between my right and my left, which makes it very difficult for someone who is trying to direct me. Anyway, earlier this week I went to meet a friend for a walk. Having driven there, I carefully put my parking details into RingGo and headed off into the park. When I returned there was a traffic warden standing by my vehicle
“It’s OK”, I said to my concerned friend. “I remembered to do RingGo”. As I approached I saw a ticket being placed under the windscreen wiper. I showed her my phone with parking paid for and she informed me that it wasn’t the correct licence number.
That’s when I realised that I had paid for my previous car, which is probably now just a lump of metal in a scrap yard. So the following day I went to the Edinburgh Council customer hub (for goodness sake!) for the first time in ages.
In ye olden days there was always a long queue, but in front of me there was no one except a council employee behind a computer screen. He informed me that I had to make a bid for forgiveness online but I couldn’t see how to do it.
He started to explain and I told him that this was useless as I had a bus pass and therefore unable to take on any new technology into my old frazzled brain. Rather sweetly he took my phone and rather than make a beeline for someone who could flog it in China, he scanned a code, helped me fill in the form and how to upload the screen shot (which the parking warden had shown me how to do).
Hey presto, it went through and now I just have to wait and see if they will forgive my stupidity and allow me off forking out £50 for pressing the wrong button. I suppose I should use this time trying to learn a few more things to do on my phone, but frankly I have discovered that it is often easier to explain that I simply can’t do it and get some young person, for whose education I have contributed, to do it for me. So in meantime I think I might be just alright for a while as my daughter has shown me how to use Google maps which should keep me on the straight and narrow.