Airplay. Brilliant, but a techno-wow too far?

As Band Aid stuttered through the hifi and – after a valiant effort to make it to the first chorus – eventually disappeared entirely, I knew only one thing; my Airport Express had decided to cease working for the second time that day and at an equally inconvenient juncture.

We were hosting our first and only Christmas party of the festive season and, an hour before our guests were due to arrive, my rarely used AE had decided to remove itself entirely from my home network. There was no trace of it, it had indeed gone AWOL and hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye. The green ‘everything’s ok!’ light stayed steadfastly lit, grinning at me like an illegitimate, spoilt child.

After a tiny amount of non-festive swearing and a great deal of self-persuading that throwing it down the street would not a fix produce, a full reset to factory settings did the trick.

This lasted approximately three hours, by which time we were all sitting down to enjoy the hearty Christmas dinner my fiancé and I had slaved over. No sooner had I plunged my fork into a sizeable chunk of turkey had Boy George started doing an impromptu bit of beat boxing instead of his usual verse.

“Mark, for Christmas, I’m going to buy you a CD player and some CDs,” said my friend.

That struck a chord, if you’ll excuse the pun. As clever as the Airport Express/Airplay setup I’d been relying on was, it was proving to be, unfortunately, completely and utterly unreliable.

Yes, it looked cool. Swanning around the house with my iPad, showing anyone who cared (there weren’t many) that I could make music come out of my hifi via my oversized iPod Touch without wires made me feel like Steve Jobs, striding across the stage at an Apple event leading an expectant crown on to the next ‘wow’ moment.

That’s great, until the bloody thing stops working. And, then, yes, why not just go back to good old CDs? What was wrong with them?

It’s made me question the benefit of such technological wizardry.

Apple made a big thing about Airplay this year and rightly so. Being able to wirelessly stream audio and video around your house is convenient, enjoyable and, in this form, relatively inexpensive. But, then, where is Mr Jobs when it all goes wrong? Quite often, he’s standing there, pointing the finger, blaming us, the humble user. We’re holding it wrong. It wasn’t designed for that. It’s Thursday. You’ve got an uncle called Jim. It’s your fault.

As much as I felt like heading over to the Apple boss’ house to wrap my iPad around his neck and force-feed him the Airport Express, I couldn’t afford the time or air miles, therefore settled for good old MTV instead. That worked. Flawlessly.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly happy, I’m just not a huge fan of making a big thing about the calendar clicking over to a new year. I had an enjoyable ‘NYE’but even that consisted of me simply getting drunk and paying no particular attention to the clock – just another night in, then.

I’ve never been ‘out’on new year’s eve. I have either worked (do it if you can – you’ll make a shed-load of cash) or have chosen to spend the night in with loved ones, far from the crowds that hit the local town centre. I just simply can’t understand the fascination with going out, on what is essentially a normal night, and spending an inordinate amount of time queuing to get into pubs which, upon paying money to get in (?) you’ll spend the remainder of the night being shouldered about at the bar in a vain attempt to buy your first over-priced drink. You probably won’t get that drink either, as you’ll be distracted by someone you used to go to school with who you’d much rather punch in the face than talk to but will be coerced into doing the latter. Because it’s new year’s eve.

And then I suppose you’ll need to get home which will inevitably involve hailing a taxi. Only ‘hailing’on new year’s eve actually means standing in a four mile queue in sub zero temperatures for an hour before eventually getting into a taxi that will rid you of your life savings in exchange for a two mile drive.

It’s all over so quickly, too. It’s now the 2^nd of January and all the festive merry-making seems so long ago. I had to resist the urge to put my foot through my TV last night when an advert for a Christmas saving company was aired. ‘Start saving now for Christmas 2009′ was the depressing tag line. Surely, amongst all the current financial turmoil, the last thing any of us should be worrying about is next Christmas. Add to that holidays. As is always the case at this time of year, advert breaks are filled with images of sun drenched Spanish beaches and (even more uninviting) Butlins. According to Sky News, we’re all going to lose our jobs next week so I fail to see how any of us can be planning expensive foreign holidays or putting £100 aside each month to pay for Christmas 2009.

Some good news, though – I’m off on a stag do tomorrow in London which should prove far more enjoyable than any forced festive enjoyment.

Happy New Year!

Whoops.