Vodka Drinkers

Calling them Internet Refuseniks either makes them sound like hero-dissidents or stubborn old fools. At least some people have a bit of empathy, and understand that, if you can use the phone (and I'd add, listen to the radio), using the innernet might not seem all that compelling.

I read this story yesterday, and thought of it last night when I caught the end of Watchdog. The scandal of the moment was bootleg vodka, some brand I'd never heard of, the sort of thing you can buy in your local Booze Busters for £7.49 a bottle. The spokeswoman from the company wanted to give out a Customer Care telephone number, for people to dial whilst dying from methanol poisoning. But Nicky Campbell stopped her and said, "Before you do that, we'll put the number on our web site, and people can log on and get it from there."

Which is a stunning example of an innernet-aware person having absolutely no empathy with either the audience, or the kind of the people who like to drink vodka that costs £7.49 a bottle, or 3 for £15.

Not that I wish to stereotype people, but if the shaggy, bearded bloke I saw walking along the street drinking Special Brew at 9 a.m. yesterday morning is an habitual web user, I'm Nicky Campbell's aunt.

What technology boosters can't quite get their heads round is the fact that, from a certain point of view, the internet is a load of old rubbish. Computers are rubbish, email is rubbish, and the web is rubbish. It's been said before, but say it again, till it gets through: If you compare a reliable piece of established technology -- like a battery powered radio -- with a computer, the gulf is so wide as to be ridiculous. Let me just boot up my radio and log on, and then wait while the latest news downloads. Oops, I have to restart my radio and then run Radio First Aid to see what the problem is.

Which is why my blood slightly simmers everytime they give out the BBC Five Live web address and suggest that people log on to listen to sound clips, or "Email the programme." You're driving in your car listening to the radio, or you're standing in your kitchen peeling the spuds, and you hear that, "log on to the web site and..."; it makes me spit. What the fuck do they think people are doing while they listen to the radio?

And do they really think John on the M68 is keen to spend three quarters of an hour trying to download and install the free version of Real Player?

Oh the humanity. (Incidentally, I do hope they'll stop this ridiculous game of encouraging people to text messages constantly. "John on the A42 just killed a pedestrian, and wants to know...")

My work inbox this morning was full of messages from Stacy, offering me pictures of ti+ht t++nage p***y stretched tight by unf^*+ably large..." (I blank out the words, not just because they might cause offence, but because I don't ever want this page to appear if someone types that in as a search term.)

So you have to ask yourself, what will the government say, when they have persuaded everyone to get on the innernet in order to access government web sites (which don't function with Macs), when their inboxes are filled with utter filth? Er, yes, we told you it was a Good Thing, but we didn't mean the bit that everyone was excited about for the first five years. Not the porn, no, nor the illegal downloads. Just the government web sites. What? You use a Mac? Oh dear. Have you thought about using a PC? You have? And decided against? I see... Would you like to buy some V+agra? No? How about a degree from a Mexican University?

I use the internet all the time, I do, at work at least. I'm a data miner. I go home with my face blackened with filth and my mind full of interesting business opportunities, suffering from Keyboard Vibration White Finger. But at home? No thanks. It's rubbish, isn't it?