Nelson Galaxy

Today marks the US shopping event that is known as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the beginning of the hectic Christmas shopping season. Black Friday is not a traditional holiday but workers are given the day off so they can get a head start on their Christmas retail adventures. It is given such an unusual name because it is the time when retailers are in the black - turning a profit.

Exactly one year ago I had my own antithetical Black Friday. It involved the systematic breakdown of all my consumer electronic goods. I arrived home, relieved that it was the beginning of the weekend to find that nothing worked. It appeared that there had been a power surge through one of the wall sockets. Obviously this is something that happens often, it just happened to be the socket that provided energy feed to my most expensive and treasured items. I have since purchased a surge control adaptor.

My big, expensive flat screen television would not switch on. My digital freeview box was non-operational. My PlayStation 2 would not blink its little red eye at me. My amplifier would switch on, hooray, however it would not provide any sound on the right side, boo. My CD player laughed at me when I pressed the power switch. The video recorder growled and tried to bite my fingers.

I could not accept that all these items were irreparably damaged. I tried a new fuse in the digital box, however being an electronics imbecile, I used a 10-amp fuse instead of a 3-amp and it exploded with a flash. It made me squeal. I got a man in to fix my television, but he too was inadequate with electronics and blatantly did not have a clue what he was doing (avoid Sam’s TV on Bethnal Green Road – rubbish).

So I have now reached a point where I have scrimped and saved for a whole year and can now replace my precious consumer electronic items. Hopefully, this Black Friday will be a very different affair than the last one.

On the Nelson hi-fi today:
The Strokes - “First Impressions of Earth”