... and mosquito, natural enemies

It's bedtime at the Clark household, and I'm lying in bed, exhausted after the heat of the day (it's been stupidly hot today and for the last few days) and the fact that I've had quite a heavy summer cold over the last 4 days or so.

Naomi has left the window in this room open for me, and arranged the net curtain in such a way as to let some air flow in, but hopefully not too many of our insect brethren. My main concern is mosquitos, which are attracted to my blood to an alarming degree (confirmed by my blood-poisoned foot covered in 30 individual bites when I was in the caribbean a few years back). Naomi's parents are kind enough to burn citronella oil whenever we eat on the patio in their garden because they know just how troubled I am by biting insects.

I do hope I don't get bitten tonight.

The other notable result of the heatwave over the past few days has been that my Sony Ericsson k750i has malfunctioned. The screen stays white permanently. I went to the vodafone shop to see if i could get it serviced (it's under one year old), and the somewhat arrogant staff member pulled the battery out of the phone, pointed to a pink strip of plastic on the battery and told me that it'd become water damaged. I explained that it'd been nowhere near any water, which leaves the only explanation being that my body heat and any sweat in my pocket over the past few days has been enough to compromise the phone, and I now find out, my hardware guarantee. Pretty poor build quality, I'd say, however good the features. I'd love to know what operating conditions they do guarantee for this phone, because even within Europe the weather would generally be pretty hot in a number of countries, and phones are generally taken to be stored in trouser pockets as a matter of course.

Anyway, Naomi's given me her k700i to tide me over, but I'll miss some of the features of the k750i.