Sledghammer/Walnut

For a little while now, The Mum has been after a new PC. To be fair the one she had was getting on a bit and was mind-bendingly slow. She asked last year if I would go with her to help pick one, but things were a bit hectic up until Christmas so it wasn't until last week that we finally met up in the Mecca for vaguely bemused elderly middle-class folks that is the John Lewis IT department.

We had a discussion about what tasks the computer would be used for ("Sometimes going to the M&S website, sometimes booking theatre tickets online, a few emails and typing the odd letter"). We discussed portability (not important) and screen size (very important). Eventually after a bit of looking around we settled on a quite nice all-in-one PC. Nothing too outrageous but a good size screen, a seperate graphics card and a decent amount of RAM & disc space, all for a shade less than a laptop.

Happy that my not-buying-something-entirely-inappropriate work was done and with the office calling, I headed back to work.

The following day I got a phonecall;

"Hello, it's your Mum. What's the difference between a PC and a Mac?"

I struggled to answer the question in a context that would make sense. Eventually I settled on the the concept that it's like the difference between a Ford and a Jaguar. Both will get you reliably from A to B, but the Jag will do it a bit more stylishly (and cost you twice as much).

So now The Mum has a 21.5" iMac sitting in its box in her office, waiting for me to set it up. I will weep with envy and radiate covetousness as I unpack it. But I bet the M&S website will look ace on it.

NDC