When, early in the millennium, I first started using an internet-enabled computer, there used to be a novelty paper clip which would pop up at inconvenient moments and say things like it looks like you want to write a letter...and then offer its help.
As this inspired no confidence whatsoever, this offer was always somewhat tersely declined.
The world saw off the blasted paper clip, hurrah, but the terrible beings which secretly inhabit the internet were not all destroyed, and they have grown back in a new and sinister form.
For now, my friends, they are invisible.
This awful tale comes from Tanya Gold in the 18/10/17 Telegraph online(£).
I recently wrote an email of condolence to a widow; she wrote back to say she cried. Gmail suggested the automatic reply: 'Me too!'
Something deep in the darkness of cyberspace is expanding...
...and I'm horribly afraid that I can feel humanity retreating in its path.
Word To Use Today: sinister. The Latin word sinister means on the left-hand side, which was considered by fortune tellers to be unlucky.
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