My placebo wireless network

This is what sits atop my PC at home. When I got a Nokia N800 a while ago, I found that I needed to be constantly connected everywhere in the house (that includes the loo – Ronan Keating eat your heart out – I laugh in the face of your phone-in-the-jacks) and the signal just wasn’t good enough. I read a thread on boards that said a colander or something relective would work.

Not having a colander, and being a true Blue Peter boy at heart, I fashioned some tinfoil into a convex shape and stuck it over the aerial. It was more concavely when I first made it. Now you can see it looks of nothing much. I don’t think it really boosts the signal by much but I like to think it does. It rattles gently as I type, which I like, so I am keeping it there for the moment.

Reminds me of the time I made an Easter cake from a recipe I saw on Blue Peter. I was maybe 7 or 8 at the time and I don’t fully recall it myself, but my mother has told the story often enough. I pestered her to get all the ingredients (which included mayonnaise, ugh) and with Easter chickens for the top. By all accounts it was truly disgusting, and no one in the house ate it only me, right down to the last piece. I was (and still am, evidently) a stubborn child who could not be deviated once he got an idea in his head.