Maybe someone up there's trying to tell me something. Last month I opened this column with three harmless little words: "I hate Christmas". So what happens over Christmas? No, let's be more specific — guess what happens on Christmas Day. I break my ankle, that's what. 27 years without a single broken bone — or even stitches, come to think of it — and then this. A message? Something, perhaps, along the lines of: "OK. One or two deadly sins plus a little disbelief — fervent atheism, even — is one thing. But mock my son's birthday and I'll do you." I don't know... I prefer to think of it as the inevitable result of throwing yourself down an icey mountainside with your feet bolted to a couple of fibre-glass planks and only the vaguest idea of how to steer the damn things — which adds to the fun, it must be said.

So anyway, I had plenty of time over the next week or so — before work on this issue got in the way — to do fulfilling, worthwhile things, such as lie prone on the sofa watching the Stars In Their Eyes Elvis Special. The title says it all.

I did manage to fit in a little music, however, and one unexpected result of my minor temporary disability was that, because reaching from synth keyboard to computer keyboard became just that little bit more awkward in my home setup (the physical arrangement of the two is a compromise between aesthetics, space limitations, and practicality), I found myself using Vision's remote control facilities a good deal more than I ever had. Laziness had prevented me from previously exploiting the option to control the sequencer from my synth keyboard — I got used to the keyboard equivalents, and mousing my way around, and just could not be bothered to get down and try anything different. This changed things, and having tried the remote facility I find that it does — as it should — speed things up, and make for a better and more integrated working environment.

No great surprise here. This is a smart feature of Vision, working as it should, but it took an unexpected and unusual circumstance to prompt me to explore this aspect of the program, one which I could have exploited at any time previously had the inclination taken me.

So, I plead guilty to more than a little laziness, but I take this as my first reminder of 1993 that you should always experiment, try something different — it's often worth the little effort involved. Just make sure you read the manual and know what the hell you're doing. Whoops, blasphemy again, damnit...