Powering down.

I am today simultaneously impressed and disappointed by modern technology.

I'm finally blogging from a coffee shop in Birmingham - here's me, looking a little worse for wear (and like I'm leaning on that guy's arse). But it took me some time to get here.

In what may have been an act of defiance, my phone switched itself off last night, when it's battery died and the whole thing powered down for the first time in ages.

It's like it was saying to me, "hey! Silent's not enough, buddy. I'm powering down."

This led to a series of panic attacks. What if someone needed to get in touch with me? What if someone died? Or, worse still, what if my other communication devices join forces with the phone, form some sort of union and go on strike!

Thinking that I ought to check the former before fearing the latter, I tried to give me mum a ring. But, lo and behold, her number was stored on my phone. My sister's too, and my best friend's.

Don't worry, I thought. I've got backup.

But, when you're standing on a train platform in England's second city, having your phonebook backed up online is really no use.

I needed to get inside and find some wi-fi. This shouldn't be too difficult, right? This is England's second city, after all.

Well, I don't know how they rank these things, but finding wi-fi was pretty difficult. And when I finally did, my MacBook dimmed and whirred, as if to say, "sorry boss, the phone was calling me a 'scab'," and powered down, it's battery dead. It had joined the strike, the aluminium encased bastard!

And so the last hour or so has been spent, scouting Birmingham for a power outlet. Starbucks didn't have one spare, neither did Costa, and security weren't best impressed when I stole power from a Coke machine in the Bullring (though the act itself was rather empowering).

So here I am now, having been thrown out of Europe's biggest shopping centre, sitting in the concourse between it and my train back to London. I'm powered-up and connected; I've Skyped my friends and family, they're all fine. But I'm terrified to check my iPod. If that powers down I've got a two and half hour journey in silence.

What will I do? Read?