On cable

I am a man. I own a whole box of cable. That's actually a lie. It's two boxes.

"Only connect," said EM Forster, and never a truer phrase was spoken about the male condition. That fundamental, driving force which compels man to Maplin, there to buy any number of coiled black leads with gold connectors that best link one black box to another.

This particular pon farr was caused by my new laptop. It is lovely. It is shiny. It has an HDMI port. I've never had one of those before, so had to buy a cable for it. Even better, my projector turns out to be HD-ready. Thrillingly this meant buying an HDMI to DVI cable. For £30. Which seemed a bit steep - but then who wouldn't want to update their Facebook status on a screen 10 feet high?

Of course, I got the cable home and discovered I'd bought an HDMI to Simple DVI cable, rather than the proper HDMI to DVI-30pin (RGB-CGA-MDA-EGA) cable. I looked on the internet. If I wanted to play that game, I'd have to buy the cable from Holland.

Every man knows their limits. I've got SCART-switching boxes. I've got S-video connectors that would make a monk blush. Despite being unable to drive I own several in-car chargers. I've even got a headphone-splitter jack in case a friend should say "I'd also like to listen to your taste in music on this interminable train journey" (This has never happened. This will never happen. But I have a cable, just in case).

But finally, here was the cable smackdown. The invitation had come - did I want to pony up and join the big boys? Did I want to get envious glances in Maplin? Did I want to be the person who says to guests "why yes - isn't the picture clear? I got this cable custom shipped in from Holland"?

The answer is no. Instead, I dangled my useless £30 cable from my hand and watched the cat chew on it happily.