As my regular reader will know I have a bit of a thing for gadgets. I am tempted to buy a new one, the Toshiba TG01. There are a few things that tickle my fancy about this phone: a 4.1inch 800x480 screen, a 1GHz CPU, a whizzy GPU and an accelerometer plus all of the other features of my current Xperia X1. However, it does not have a keyboard, it has an onscreen one.

The partner has constantly been going on and on to me about how I should be buying an iPhone as he likes his so much. One of the reasons I’ve given is that I don’t like onscreen keyboards. I also think the screen on the iPhone has a pretty ropey resolution. When I had my Nokia N800 internet tablet the first accessory I got for it was a Bluetooth keyboard. I briefly had an HTC Touch Diamond and didn’t really like it as it had an onscreen keyboard and even the larger one it came with that was designed for its high resolution display was poor.

Before all of these I had an i-mate Jasjar (a rebranding of the HTC Universal). OK, it was a brick, but I loved its high resolution display and its keyboard. Why did I stop using it? Because I knackered it installing custom ROMs. Ah well…

So has technology moved on far enough for onscreen keyboards to be useful? Some people think so, maybe I should give them another try. One of the good things about the TG01 is that it has USB host capabilities and Bluetooth so if I really want to type a lot I can attach a keyboard.

One of the things that strikes me about phones like the TG01, and I would include the iPhone in that list, is that they are mature, convergent devices. They are phones, media players, gaming devices, internet tablets, navigation tools, cameras, PIMs and work tools. Little, connected computers in your pocket, basically. Speaking as a superannuated toddler I remember when such things were science fiction.

After last night in a temporary bed I got moved to a ward first thing this morning. I was pleased until I realised I was just being moved to the ward; they had no bed for me. I assumed it would be the usual Oxleas House system of waiting until ten at night before finally being given a room, but I was almost pleasantly surprised only to have to wait six hours before a room was found.

I also managed to see a consultant psychiatrist (good) who doubled my dose of anti-depressants (also good) but he refused to do anything about my anti-psychotic medication as he didn't want to fiddle with multiple medications at the same time (very bad). I really need the anti-psychotic medication to be changed as the current stuff is doing nothing and I am experiencing really bad hallucinations; it could well be the intensity of them that is making me depressed. I do not get to see him again for a week.

The bin is the usual horror story, filled with unhappy, confused people who feel the need to shout a lot. Only a few times today have people exploded and tired to leave forcably. None of them have been me. Now I have my room I just hide in here cuddling Butter the bear and occasionally going online. The bin is greatly improved by the presence of my N800 internet tablet.

I have come back from France early as I am so depressed I need to go to the loony bin immediately. Bugger.

I'll get home, charge my phone and internet tablet then head straight there. They are expecting me. I wonder how long I'll have to wait for a bed this time. At my local bin my minimum waiting time has been twelve hours.

Readers from last month may recall I got Skype working on my Nokia N95 mobile phone thanks to a program called Fring. This was all very well and good, but connection via Wifi on the N95 eats batteries like there is no tomorrow. It is also not so good for text-based chats/Instant Messages on a mobile phone keypad. Well, help has arrived in the form of the latest firmware update for my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet; it now supports Skype. The batteries of the N800 last a lot longer when connected via Wifi so it should be easier to make and receive calls when in range of a Wifi hotspot. Since I have a Bluetooth keyboard for my N800 I should also find it much easier to use the IM functionality of Skype, something I use quite a lot. The only problem with the firmware update is that it requires one to re-install all of one's applications. This is not as bad as it seems for if you have been diligent and made backups the settings for most of the programs will be retained (note the emphasis on 'most', as in: not all). The firmware upgrade also allows one to use SD cards with a greater capacity than before, so this is a boon for those who want to carry around a lot of music (like me) or videos. Mind you, I already have five gigabytes of music on mine, I don't really need that much more...

I went to bed an hour early and slept until half-three so things have improved a bit with the increased dose of anti-depressants (they are supposedly very sedating). Now all I need them to do is start cheering me up as I am still not terribly happy. I wonder how good the new anti-psychotics are, though, as I am still having unpleasant hallucinations and my paranoid delusions are really quite colourful.

As a side note to last night's Wifi fun with my Nokia N95 phone; it works a treat but leaving Wifi on all the time sucks the battery dry terribly quickly. Leaving Skype/Fring running over Wifi permanently just cannot be done. I even tried lowering the Wifi broadcast power to see if that would increase the battery life, but no dice. It will have to be a case of connecting when I want to make an international call. I will see how the battery lasts on my N800 when Skype comes out for that. I think both my N95 and N800 are great; obviously toys in some ways, but terribly useful. I would have been so utterly unhappy in the loony bin without the contact they allowed me to have.

I gave up trying to sleep at half-three. Brilliant. Oh how that cheers me up.

I was having problems getting the Wifi function of my Nokia N95 phone to work. It would not connect to my DG834GT router at all. I kept getting messages about 'Invalid shared WPA keys' when trying to connect to the internet even when I had entered the WPA key correctly. I found the solution in post number three by Plx here. I can now connect problem-free to my Wifi router, and hopefully other people's as well (assuming I have the network key or they are unprotected access points).

Why did I want to do this when I have such a high transfer bandwidth from T-Mobile on my Web'n'Walk package? Well, my internet connection bandwidth cannot be used for VoIP programs like Skype, I paid for the cheaper option that didn't allow this. IRC, email and IM programs had served me well in the loony bin last week, but for making international calls it would be nice to be able to use my Skype account over a Wifi network. It is planned for Skype to come out for my Nokia N800 at some point this summer, but as yet there is no word about exactly when.

Luckily, I was searching forums about the N95 and someone linked to Fring. At first glance this is just another IM program that lets you connect to many networks (GoogleTalk, MSN and Twitter). However, it also allows you to connect to the Skype and use your SkypeOut account to make calls to any number in the world cheaply, as well as just calling other Skype users for free. Of course, other Skype users can call you (when you are connected to a Wifi network). I had Skype working on my N95 via Wifi! No need to wait for the N800 version (although I'll install that when it arrives).

So now I can do IRC, IM and email on the N800 using Wifi or connected to my Web'n'Walk via Bluetooth and cheap international calls via Wifi on my N95. Pretty cool, eh?

I saw the boss-lady psychiatrist yesterday. She agreed to take me off the drug that is keeping me awake. Sadly, the dose will have to be gradually lowered over several days, but hopefully this means sleep will come soon.

She has also prescribed me a short-term course of clonazepam, a tranquiliser, to help me deal with the incredible anxiety I feel being locked up. To be honest, it barely scratches the surface of the terror that is my life, but even a slight improvement is welcome.

Amazingly, the nurses also were bothered to go and get my anti-depressants yesterday, so maybe I will begin to feel less miserable.

Feeling miserable, and sadly suicidal, is still a problem, though. Today I want to negociate for the return of my belt, shoelaces and earphones, so I will have to be very careful what I say. I will have to stress how much getting my medication sorted out has perked me up. Oh, and avoid saying I am as miserable as sin and if I am left alone with a bottle of cyanide I'll swallow it instantly. I do not think there is terribly much cyanide on the ward, though.

I suppose I am happy that I have my Nokia N800 and N95 to keep in contact with the outside world, and having Butter to cuddle as I lie awake at night helps a lot as well.

Some friends are going to visit this evening and I cannot express how pleased I'll be to see them. I'll ask them to dress as washer women and smuggle me out in their basket of washing.

So the fifteen hours I was quoted to get a bed expired, and I exploded in a highly articulate outburst and attempted to leave the bin. Nearly managed it too until I got intercepted by a very friendly doctor who said he would get me a bed within five minutes if he had to carry one up himself. So that was the bed situation sorted out.

Soon afterwards it was half ten and time for medication. My drug chart had been written up at five in the morning so they had plenty of time to get my drugs in. Naturally, none of them were to be found. Cue explosion number two.

Luckily, I had scored the phone number of the friendly doctor and rang him up. He could not get my sedating anti-depressant, but he did give me 5mg of nitrazepam. I went out like a light and slept until six. Sleep! Real sleep! How I love it. I think it has made me feel a tiny bit happier.

I have to say it has been great having my N800 here for blogging, IRC and IM`ing people. The bin would be worse without it, even if it is hard typing on a bed.

On Friday I had another awful night`s sleep, I got out of bed at half one. I am afraid to report that this all got a bit too much for me and at two in the morning I swallowed a large overdose of sleeping tablets, anti-depresssants, anti-psychotics and tranquilisers. The next thing I remember is staggering to a taxi to go to hospital.

Of course, it being a Friday night by then accident and emergency was packed and it took hours to be seen. I was then referred to a psychiatrist which took another age. I agreed to be thrown in the loony bin on the condition that I could jump in a taxi and go home to get some clothes (escorted, of course).

I made it back to the hospital at six on Saturday morning, and have been waiting for a bed ever since. The most recent news is that I will get a bed around nine at night, if I am lucky. A fifteen hour wait does not sound lucky to me.

The bin is bloody awful, filled with unhappy people shouting at each other and watching television at ear-bleeding volume. I have managed to persuade them to let me hide in a little store room, but it is still miserable as sin and I am vastly unhappy.

It does not look like my medication will be reviewed until Monday, so I am sure you can imagine this makes me even happier.More news as it comes in.

PS. The Nokia N800 is great for blogging in the loony bin.

At the end of last month I got a Nokia N800 internet tablet to replace my old portable internet device. I've been terribly pleased with it, it is quite useful and there is a load of free software available for it including a blogging app that I am using to write this.

However, for surfing the web when not in range of a Wifi hotspot one needs to make a Bluetooth connection to a phone and connect over a cellular network. I didn't think this would be a problem until I spoke to my old mobile phone service provider and they said the highest data transfer limit I could get on my (not terribly cheap) tariff was four megabytes a month; this is also known as 'piss all'.

So I cancelled my contract instantly and switched to wonderful T-Mobile who give three gigabytes of data transfer for a little over an Ayrton* a month. This is pretty much all a wired toddler could want in a month when staggering about to playgroup and the like. I got the middle data plan; there is a cheaper one for £7.50 that doesn't allow one to use IM programs and a more expensive one that allows the use of VoIP programs like Skype. Since the voice part of my tariff allows an obscene amount of calls to be made I don't need to bother with the Skype option.

Of course, switching mobile providers means normally gets a new phone, and what a marvellous new phone I have. It is a Nokia N95. This has some nifty toys built in: a five mega pixel camera, a decent music player (it supports four gigabyte micro-SD cards for holding music and pictures), high speed HSDPA 3G data access for surfing the web (either from the phone or from the N800) and a GPS with mapping software. I admit, I've only used the GPS twice (I now know exactly where I and the neighbours live), but it is quite amusing none the less. I've downloaded an application called Mobile GMaps that integrates with Google Maps and the GPS so you can track your position using overhead satellite pictures as well as more traditional maps. It is a great phone and I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a new blower. There is a good review on The Register if you want to know more.

Sadly, fun as it is to have new toys, I am still pretty freaking miserable.

*Ayrton Senna = Tenner