eventually managed on the Nth attempt to pick up a phone call from someone else. On every other occasion the "interactive" screen just wouldn't react appropriately to me trying to activate the green blob with the old-style handset icon on it.

still not succeeded in phoning out - even though my brother (who loaned me his wife's old phone) had allegedly bought a pre-loaded sim for it for me, rather than sending off for the free sim (which might have been enough merely to test the signal).

he thought he'd activated the phone when he installed the sim, before packaging up & posting the whole thing off. He'd definitely got as far as getting it to see the three network and have a phone number allocated to the sim.

he also claims he installed the Google app/wallet thingummy.

but now he says that maybe there's a step he didn't complete - and it could be one which requires me to somehow have control of the Google account (or associate the phone with my existing Google email from ages ago???).

also what freakish thing could have been happening to the reported signal strength for a brief period of time.

always getting almost no signal in here with everyone's phones - including this one for the few days it has been switched on in the house. But then suddenly, just before noon, it was claiming 4 bars (when the successful phone call was made). But now it's back to a miserable 1 bar.

been speculating that someone had installed a new phone mast in the area between xmas and the new year (and/or finally switched it on). But that means it would have to have been short-lived. Fallen/broken down, turned off after testing, or even on a vehicle passing by rather than a fixed installation.

let the phone know about my Google account but that still hasn't freed up anything else - ie I can't call out because it doesn't believe there's any money on the account and the three app doesn't seem to go anywhere useful either. It just demands more money.

you can buy gloves that work on touchscreens.

the gloves won't magically make the missing money/credit appear though.