How an mp3 player helps to relieve me of my haemorrhoids while allowing me to play with my little organ…

Be honest, haemorrhoids are not the most pleasant things in the world. I've put up with them for a while now. No idea why I get them, but perhaps it's something to do with the medicine I take, or simply the age, which seems to be blamed for quite a number of ailments.

I've tried pills, potions and pomades, but there's nothing that helps quite like the remedy suggested by She Who Knows Best (whe else?): old-fashioned starch.

I kid you not. It reaches parts other products fail to reach…

So each evening you can now find me sitting for about half an hour in a bidet, which is filled with pleasantly warm water in which a handful of Remy Royal Starch has been dissolved. Relief is assured.

But what to do during that half hour?

Well, I used to read. Recently, however, I purchased an Apple iPod Touch, an mp3 player that does a lot more than just play mp3s. One of the additional features is its ability to run applications that can be purchased and downloaded for a very small cost, or even free. I have become particularly enamoured of three of these "apps", namely Cribbage, Backgammon, and Pocket Organ.

Being careful with my money (otherwise known as an old skinflint), I have chosen the free, or "lite", versions of Cribbage and Backgammon: they do for me quite well, thank you, and I really do not need the online playing capabilities offered by the paid versions. I've tried a couple of other implementations of these games, but the versions linked to please me most.

Most of my time, however, is spent playing with my little organ.

The little organ in question is provided by Pocket Organ C3B3. I had to pay for this app, much to my chagrin, but having previously owned a Hammond drawbar organ (an Aurora Century, in fact), I quite fancied a tockle on the plastics again and 2.99 euro wasn't really going to break the bank.

Wonderful app, with a decent sound (especially with earphones) and a cleverly designed interface to set up the various functions of the organ and to adjust its drawbars.

Don't get me wrong, I was never a virtuoso; nothing like it! But I can follow a relatively simple score and Pocket Organ provides more than enough scope for my limited abilities. I'm already belting out Welsh favourites such as Calon Lân, Myfanwy, Sosban Fach and Wooden Heart (well, that's Elvis via Swabia, but you get the idea).