Why would I want to get on the internet ?

Think about the things you have to do today: make a shopping list and brave the supermarket, pay some bills, send a card for a friends anniversary, buy your aunt a birthday present then wrap it and post it, order a reference book from the library for your next big project – you just know they won’t have it in stock – and maybe help with the kids’ homework.

The good news is that, while you’ll still have a cook your own meals and stack your own dishwasher at the end of the day, the internet can help with all the rest of those daily chores, and probably save you heaps of time into the bargain.

The value of the internet increases as more and more people connect to it. Think of the telephone. One telephone by itself is absolutely useless; it becomes useful the minute a second telephone is installed and more and more useful as further telephone are installed. The internet’s the same and, while even five years ago it had a limited appeal, a gee-whiz aura, it has evolved to the point where it is populated by enough companies, services and people to be really useful.

Apart from the must-do things in life, there are stacks of wouldn’t-it-be-nice things the net can assist with as well – shopping for rare, out-of-print- books and records, trawling the world for obscure collectibles on auction sites, or shopping for luxurious lingerie or the finest golf club the world has to offer. If you have a hankering for Moroccan tagine but don’t have a recipe book, the net can come to the rescue, with more recipes than you’d ever have time to prepare.