Thank heavens for those everyday saints who work tirelessly to save us from ourselves. Why, if not for the sterling work of bankers and energy companies, for instance, we'd all be running around doing crazy things like turning on the central heating or booking holidays. Cheers, boys.
Now it's the turn of Google to play Mary Poppins with a new program called Mail Goggles. Here's the deal. It's late, you're slightly tired and emotional after partaking of the supermarket's latest "buy one bottle of wine, get 10 free" offer.
Suddenly, you remember that former love you never quite got over, or the colleague who deserves a piece of your mind. Out comes the laptop, in goes the snivelling drivel or abuse, and off you slink to bed, job done. All is well till next morning when the realisation and the replies arrive.
Mail Goggles works like beer goggles in reverse. On pressing "send", the programme will ask whether you really want to do so. As a further safeguard against drinking and driving a computer, a mini maths test follows. Pass that, and you can pass go.
Why stop at drunken e-mails? If Google really wants to improve the lot of the computer user, it should write a guide to e-mail etiquette in general. The advantages of instant communication are many and obvious. No more waiting for the postie to limp up the driveway.
Forget changing the paper in the fax machine. Just sit back and let all those lovely e-mails drop into your inbox like pennies from heaven.
It's only lately that we've woken up to the dangers, chief among them the obsessive need to check e-mails and reply immediately. Like Pavlov's dogs, we hear the ping and react. In doing so another labyrinth is entered. From how to begin (does one say "dear so and so", "hi", or launch straight in?), to how to wrap up an e-mail ("best wishes", "regards", "later"), everything is an etiquette accident waiting to happen. The most troubling missives are ones from acquaintances that sign off with an x. Depending on your age and paranoia, the kiss farewell is either an innocent sign of matiness or a peck on the cyber cheek too far.
Some of us haven't waited for Google to get its act together and instead take our own precautions against ill-advised e-mails. It's fine to write them in the heat of the moment, as long as they are saved as drafts rather than sent. Think of the drafts box as the technological equivalent of punching a cushion or visiting a therapist. Next day, when the storm has passed and forgiveness is at hand, delete the draft and bask in your own magnanimity. Failing that, go round to the varmint's home, knock on the door and run away. Basic, but it works.
I CANNOT believe how churlish and downright bitchy some commentators have been on learning that Cherie Blair has bought a £30,000 wave exercise pool for her new country pile. Little do they know that now she is no longer Britain's first lady, the bold Mrs Blair is retraining as an Olympic swimmer and plans to sweep the board at the 2012 games. Either that or sweep the floors. Think you know what we'd all like to see, Cher.
CHARLES Saatchi's revelation that he had lost weight by eating nothing but eggs has led to a run on the items. His diet, aka the Cool Hand Luke Method, is just one of many bizarre eating plans served up to the public as miracle ways to shed pounds. Another fashionable one is the Stone Age diet, the basic rule of which is to eat lots of meat. The weight loss is remarkable, but the side effects include a brain the size of a walnut and seeing DayGlo pink Tyrannosaurus-rex everywhere. Small prices to pay. If only scientists would stop wasting their time trying to feed the world for thruppence and come up with a weight loss plan that works. Though I've never tried it myself, clearly, how about something along the lines of eating less and exercising more?
WHAT a pleasure to make the acquaintance of Clara Meadmore, Glasgow-born but now living in Cornwall, who has just celebrated her 105th birthday. Miss Meadmore filled her life with friends, adventure, cats and, most importantly, celibacy. "I have just never been interested in sex. I imagine there is a lot of hassle involved and I have always been busy doing other things." What an example to all the Carrie Bradshaws out there who fear life won't be complete without a man. Showing there is no end to her classiness, Miss Meadmore celebrated her century-plus not by popping a vitamin pill but with a glass of wine. Give that woman a damehood now.
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