The excitement of a new iPad cannot be overestimated...


She's always liked apples, and this one is no exception.

My plan is to let Amelie figure out how to use the thing, and then get her to explain it to me. She's already worked out how to browse videos of herself on YouTube. Personally I'm still at the turning-it-on stage.

Anyhoo, I suppose I should explain how I came to be the proud owner of a new iPad. I've just spent all my money on a wedding, so you can bet your life I didn't pay for it. The answer lies in the conference notes I made whilst in Manchester two weeks ago...


I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Phil, with handwriting like that, you could be a doctor". And you're not wrong. But most people think I am already. Interestingly, you might notice that if a patient has no perception of light in both eyes, confirmed by an ophthalmologist, they can be permanently excluded from a screening programme. That's because they'll never find the clinic. And besides, we're too busy lasering the housebound horizontally.

But all that aside, the key bit of information I scribbled on my conference notepad appears on the right hand side, just above the squiggle. It's the figures '29 29'. That's what earned me an iPad.

Among the exhibitors at the conference was a company which has invented software capable of automatically detecting diabetic retinopathy in digital photos. But only if they're photos of eyes. They were running a competition where you had to guess how long it would take their software to grade 10,000 images. And the closest guess won an iPad.

Except that guessing is for wimps. What you really need to do is trawl the trade stands for info, and then work it out properly. So while everyone else was drinking Thursday night away at the hotel, I was back at the Travelodge, tapping numbers into my free conference calculator. By 11pm I'd arrived at a figure of 29 hours and 29 minutes. And at 9am the next morning, I was handing in my entry.

Admittedly, my confidence took a knock about two hours later when my colleague told me she'd also worked it out, and made the answer about 400 hours. But I needn't have worried. At 10am yesterday morning, the chap from the software company turned up at my workplace unannounced, and handed me an iPad. Apparently I'd been one minute closer than the next best guess. So I clearly wasn't the only one with a calculator.

As if that wasn't enough to make my day (and let's face it, it was), my colleagues then surprised me in the afternoon by presenting me with a card, flowers and wedding present. Some people will do anything to get their hands on your iPad.