No 3565 Set by Margaret Rogers
Richard Ingrams has wondered in print how long it will take before Internet Anonymous is founded to help addicts.We asked for scenes from a meeting of IA.
Report by Ms de Meaner
Some excellent entries. I was particularly sad to lose Nick MacKinnon (Netaholics Anonymous): "In version 1.0 of my addiction I wrote an applet to find all the homepages in cyberspace that nobody had ever visited. I started to invent new emoticons like 'sad Picasso' %( . . . " If I'd had room for four winners, he would have made it. £15 to the lucky three; the bottle goes to Ian Birchall for sheer cheek.
Hello everyone, my name is James , and I'm a netaholi, I'm a netahol. Look, I'm here because my wife made me come. She read about your 12-click program. So my weekly online units are over 30, and I don't have the recommended two net-free days a week, and she found a couple of extra phone points I'd had put in the loft. I just never got round to telling her. It's not like I was hiding them.
I mean, I'm just a social logger. It's not the only thing on my mind@com. So I slip off to a net cafe, at lunchtime, for a swift half hour. I only do my e-mails there.So I print them, take them back to work and read them in the toilets, and I use my personal organiser to upload my replies to the PC as I come home.
So I've had the occasional all-night session. You know what it's like, one link leads to another. But it's not really a problem. Sorry, that's my pager, telling me one of my friends has logged on in a chatroom. Is there somewhere I can plug in my laptop?
Eamonn Riley
An addict tells his story to the meeting
"I never had a proper childhood. I was only eight when I started. I should have said 'no', but the pushers were persuasive and frightening. There was a vicious brute called Blunkett, with a dog that bit your ankles if you didn't log on.
"His boss was Blair, who boasted he'd get the Internet into every primary school in the country. If Blair snapped his fingers, he'd roll over on his back - Blunkett, that is, not the dog.
"Kids should be getting healthy exercise - a brisk stroll down the off-licence for a few cans of lager. Instead, I was getting hooked on Internet shopping and home delivery. Teenagers should be developing social skills and finding out about the opposite sex. When I should have been lying my way into over-18 movies, I was downloading porn. When I could have been in a warm, smoky bar, putting back a few pints, I was in a bleak schoolroom, searching for a list of all the topless bars in South Wales.
"They should bring back hanging for men like Blair and Blunkett."
Hearty applause from all the teachers and nurses in the room.
Ian Birchall
Leader Hi! Welcome to Internet Addicts Anonymous Newbie Night. Address and alias please: speak holding the backup disk. when you hear [PASS] hand it on.
Leader: 8pm finish tonight. PC Emergency Service is coming. My modem's down.
Anne Du Croz
No 3568 Set by George Cowley
George Walden recently wrote in the NS, on the subject of the proposed Radio Einstein: "Switch on and there would be a Californian geneticist, a Japanese architect, a South American novelist, a French philosopher, with time to develop a theme." Could we eavesdrop on a small chunk of the programme? Maximum 250 words and entries to be in by 4 March.
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