The laptop is knackered. It all happened suddenly. The radio was on and Vanessa *eltz was standing in *or Jeremy Vine, she had just *inshed discussing the elderly being tazered by the police and it packed up by sticking and giving me a string of never-ending *s, **s.

Despite great e**ort on my part, prodding and poking, banging and shouting, e**ing and blinding I realised that it was *lippin gone *or good.

I did contemplate alternative options such as replacing the * with eph, ehph, ph or ph but that would have only served to add conphusion to the situation. I know the human brain is very adaptable but I certainly didn’t phancy phaphphing about trying to decipher cryptic phonetics even if other pholks enjoyed the challenge.

I wondered iph ‘iph’ looked better than i* or i* iph worked better, in the end I settled *or *.

I wondered i* I could substitute * *or  the semaphore *or the letter * or maybe even use .._.. Oops, that does’t quite work at the end of a sentence does it.._..? I *igured that using    might just be a bit to lambouyant. ancy, opening an email and inding elicitationsrom your best  riend,  using semaphore, using lags instead of *s lies in the ace o progress.

My *riend *rank suggested that I might try  as his eyesight was *ailing and he  *oolishly had signed up *or an online braille course *rom a .com in *inland. Little did he know that it was actually a *lipping *illipino called *elix *rom *rance *reelancing *or a *ake dot com trying to *leece *olk le*t, right and centre but apart *rom *rank, it seemed most people had seen through their scam.

Φ, now there’s a thought, the Greek symbol phi came *rom an idea put forward *rom my *riend *ulup in Athens but with the ever burgeoning problems over *inancial bailouts and *ailure to secure a *oolproo* plan made me think twice as their *uture in Europe is *ascinatingly **ickle given the depth of *eeling and *inancial *ailings.

I wondered if I could get around the problem by never using * again. I could boycott *, banish it once and *or all.

I lay in bed thinking about what my world would be like i* I never used * again. Could I cope? How would my li*e pan out?

*uck it, buy a new one.