When I was a kid the summers were always unbearably hot (and it always snowed at Christmas). We would turn on the hosepipe in the back garden, fill the paddling pool and splash about showering each other with jets of water. Sometimes the ice cream van would come round and hearing the music we would all run outside and line up to choose a cooling treat.

Usually I’d go for a “wafer”. The man in the van would cut a slice off a block of ice cream and sandwich it between two wafers. Then I would lick the ice cream in the middle until it got smaller and smaller and the wafer got soggier and soggier and I eventually had to eat the lot.

They stopped selling wafers for some reason. Health and safety probably or some commercial packaging business case that said it wasn’t economic. I don’t know.

Now I was excited to hear that they were bringing back the Ice Cream Sandwich. Ooo I thought.

Funny that they waited until the end of the summer but hey…

Then I find out it is being made by Google. Well, diversification can be a good thing especially if you are a giant corporation. Reliance on just search advertising can’t be a good business model and Google is a cool company. What can be cooler than ice cream? Of course it’s typical that Google have to put their own branding spin on it but I guess that will be mainly for the American market where they need to be clear to the consumer what it is they are buying.

I imagine that you will be able to supersize it in the USA but here in the UK it is still going to be a wafer thin product, certainly thinner than an Apple (a fruit – not a dairy product and therefore completely different) though apparently not quite as thin as a Razr (a toiletry?).

Woa boy. Get a grip! Ice cream, apples and razrs? Am I getting seriously confused here? Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe kids grow up knowing the intricacies of these things. Or maybe they don’t.

This year a I bought a new TV. It was not a huge investment but not one you want to make on a regular basis. There was nothing wrong with our old TV which was our first ever and actually only 5 years old but it wasn’t flat screen. Flat screen has been a game changer for us. It has changed the shape of the TV room which now feels like a huge space.

When I bought the TV I did my due diligence online and going into the shop I knew how much I should be paying for what size screen. I got a good deal because my research meant I could spot one when I saw it. The oik (generation Y sales assistant) was of no use whatsoever. I had expected him to be able to intelligently discuss the pros and cons of different manufacturers and hit me with informed opinions as to why one make was better than another.

When I called him over all he could do was read out the same small point of sale information that I had already read. Bit of a disappointment considering I was planning on spending what I thought was a goodly wodge. I bought the TV anyway based on price point, screen size and good looks.

Now we have all the hype around Ice Cream Sandwich and the Galaxy Nexus (for that is the name of the phone as opposed to the operating system) and I see pictures of one sat next to an iPhone and a Motorola Razr and I have to decide whether it is worth investing my time and money into this cool new gadget.

It doesn’t look like a game changer to me in the same way that the flat screen TV was but there again neither is the iPhone 4s compared with the iPhone4. Each iteration does however bring a set of gradual improvements that over a 2 year window say will result in a marked difference between the old and new.

The question is having had the Galaxy S2 for what feels like only 6 months am I wasting my time if I go for the Nexus Prime. I can’t say I’m ready to make the decision and fortunately I don’t have to yet because the ICS is not yet available in the UK. However amid all the hype there are only two things I can see that help me to say no.

Firstly the camera on the Nexus is only 5Mpix compared with the 8Mpix I have on the S2. Secondly the S2 screen size is about as big as I want to have to handle in a phone and the Nexus looks as if it is bigger. So at this stage of the game I’m resorting to the same basic decision making techniques I used in buying a TV and that is to look at the small headline data provided at point of sale. Not particularly scientific, especially in a technology market that has a long way to evolve.

The screen size and pixel count does it. I am happy in the very short fullness of time that gadgets stay current these days to be persuaded that I am wrong but I think I will wait for the second batch of ICS launches before pushing the purchasing button.

Note clearly we Google types are far more discerning that your average Apple fanboi who will have already robotically bought an iPhone 4s based on the marketing propaganda and the automatic switch on of the subliminal desire via iTunes control.

PS My favourite ice cream sundae is a banana split with vanilla and chocolate ice cream and lots of cream and sprinkles. Not massively practical when stood at the age of 9 in your swimming trunks in a queue outside an ice cream van so only to be consumed in an ice cream parlour.

PPS I had a ride in an ice cream van once – in Israel of all places. Remind me to tell you the story someday 🙂