Yet another use for the iPhone

Yesterday my wife and I took the kids on a surprise stay-over holiday
in Glasgow. I found a fantastic little guesthouse on laterooms.com.
It has just opened and was trying to attract some cash-flow & positive
Internet reviews by offering a solid discount. It was just two doors
down from the famous surgeon Lister's house. (He discovered that when
surgeons washed their hands and their patents wounds with carbolic
acid before they operated then the patients tended not to die from
septicaemia after surgery - the survival rate was previously about
50%. The mouthwash was named after him although I suspect he was long
dead by then - and rolling in his grave).

We got a suite with a huge kingsize bed at one end and an enormous
couch which folded out into a sofa bed at the other end. We had an
early dinner, put the kids to bed around 8 then watched two episodes
of the West Wing before retiring. Series 7 is just as good NOW as the
early series even though it didn't seem that way first time around.

So. The iPhone. It came in handy when I couldn't sleep and wanted to
read a book on my Kindle but my wife wanted to turn the light off so
she could sleep. If you don't already know the Kindle is line a book
in that it needs an external light source. I suggested to my wife
that if she was as tired then surely she could sleep with the light on
but that apparently isn't the case.

I briefly regretted not buying an iPad since it is backlit. But it
was too late for that.

Enter the iPhone at last.

Inspiration hit and I downloaded the flashlight app then lay on my
back with the iPhone on my chest as I held the kindle above it. That's
right. I used my expensive iPhone like a nightlight. It's a mediocre
flashlight at best but I got an hours extra reading out of it. Better
than staring at the ceiling not sleeping for an hour.

That's the second time I've used the flashlight app to get out of a
jam. It is surely the most useful thing about the iPhone.