Why am I so addicted to email? Why do I love it so much?
It’s taken the place of the phone call for me and of mail. Once I longed for the mail and the sound of the drop of a letter in the box addressed to me, the clatter of the letter box lid, now I long for emails.
They come thick and fast, though not always so pleasurable. The junk box fills fast and now my new computer has trouble distinguishing the junk from the genuine. I have to go through and send back serious emails into my in box and delete the gratuitous ones from Africa, the ones that involve a special plea for friendship, usually expressed in clumsy English, with frequent references to the goodness of God. The penile enhancement emails have replaced the offers of Viagra and the number of times I’ve won the lottery I cannot count. Only I must keep it a secret, I cannot let anyone know, or I will forfeit my lottery win.
I have a friend a wealthy friend who was once sucked in by one of these emails. Greedy, my husband said. He thought he could make a free dollar.
Extraordinary, I think. I’d have to be the innocent who gets taken in by more than most, even I know about the delete button for all these offers of friendship and money. Just give me the details of your bank account and you can be a beneficiary of my estate. Oh that life were so simple.
I changed the sound my computer makes when an e-mail has arrived so that I'm greeted by Joanna Lumley telling me: "You have post" – so wonderfully British. Apparently she's now regarded as a national treasure. Not quite sure what the qualifications are for that these days but no one asked me. Anyway as I leave my laptop on all day – usually because I'm sat in front of it – every now and then Joanna will tell me I've got new mail to look forward too and I'll invariably stop whatever I'm doing to see what's what. Occasionally, if the processor is very busy, it sounds like she's gargling while she's doing it but I can live with that.
If I hear her calling me in the middle of watching TV then it's awfully tempting to get up and see who it is but I don't unless my wife pops out for a toilet-break when I usually do have a quick peek. It's not as if they're going to go off or anything but it is very hard to resist. And … hang on, I've got post … just a Google alert, now, where was I? … ah, yes, and on top of the e-mails I have all my RSS feeds telling me when all the blogs I read have been updated. No Joanna Lumley for that, just a nice semi-transparent pop-up in the right hand corner of my screen telling me what's coming in.
We actually get quite a lot of actual post still. It's the thuds I look forward to because that usually means a magazine or a book to review but I couldn't tell you the last letter I got from a real person. I used to write them and I enjoyed the whole ceremony but who has the time?
My spam filters are quite good on this laptop. I get very little unsolicited mail. You should look into improving your protection if you're getting a lot.
There was a thud in my letter box today, Jim, followed by the clang of its metal lid.
Your books have arrived. What a treat. I dipped into both for half a minute and the dedication to your mother leapt out at me. From Stranger than Fiction, you write : For my mother who never read a word I wrote.
Now there's poetry for you. Poignant and bitter sweet.
Thanks so much for these. I look forward to reading them.
GM has written to tell me that he avoided his book launch for Barley Patch 'because I was too tired to try to write a speech for a launch and too tired to fix my face muscles again and again into a smile on the night of the launch.'
I've order his book now and as soon as it arrives, I'll post it onto him to get his wonderful signature on your copy, and then I'll send across the waves to you.
Gmail veers off into a spam folder, any mail coming your way, that has gone out in a bulk lot.
I will send you a gmail invitation (they ask no personal details) if you email me – I am bwican@g mail.c om