Hooray for the wonder web

I arrived for a coffee with a friend, surprisingly precisely on time, an accident by the train people, no doubt. But where was the friend? Not in the coffee shop.

I was about to do what most might do in a case like this - look for his name on the mobile's WhatsApp list. Then I remembered: he doesn't have a mobile phone.

He doesn't have what? Yet, surprisingly my friend isn't alone. It's hard to find an exact figure, but it seems that at least ten per cent of the population doesn't. Nor are they internet familiars.

When the friend arrived, I wondered about life without a mobile phone.

'For one, the craze will never last,' he said emphatically enough to suggest that it wasn't exactly the first time he had heard the question. For two, no need to remember a long list of numbers, including my own.'

'But you do have broadband?'

The devil

'The internet! Instrument of the Devil. No need for it. Think of the money I've saved.'

Perhaps to prove how much better off that made him, he bought coffee. 'Honest, now, but what use was the internet to you yesterday?'

I began to mention the websites I work on. He didn't want to know about that. He wanted to know how the internet might have helped my day.

'I wanted the times of trains today,' I said. 'I saw the choice, the price, and I booked a ticket.'

'You had to go to the station to catch the train. You could have done that there. What else?'

'I'm practising sextant work for a voyage in the planning. I do noon sights via a bucket of water.'
Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventuring book, Sailing to Purgatory, at
http://sailingtopurgatory.com/index.php/feeds/376-hooray-for-the-wonder-web