"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three..."

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, it has certainly been a while! You'd be mistaken for imagining I had been on an expensive two-week holiday to Argentina, or had been detained for the theft of a £1.99 pencil sharpener from Smiths, or dare I say it that, as the second coming, I had died and come back to life with the express purpose of saving mankind from their sins, only had decided to extend the duration from three days to three weeks in order to achieve a higher 'wow' factor and a place in the Guinness Book of Records. I'm afraid to reveal, however, that all of these are far from the truth. The simple fact of the matter is that I have not had the internet for some time.

Such a revelation will undoubtedly be horrifying to some of you whose existence depends upon this link to the outside world. The fact that I am still alive, breathing and able to maintain a game of chess for over three quarters of an hour will seem a miracle, unbelievable and possibly even induce you to swoon into the arms of a wealthy potential lover named Lord Brandenburg. How does his heart still beat when he hasn't been able to announce his eating a banana on Facebook? How can he still function when he hasn't heard the latest gossip about Jordan's waxwork face (there's always 'Heat' magazine)? Well the fact is, friends, that it hasn't been as much of an ordeal as you might imagine. It did however reveal some somewhat interesting observations that I should like to share with you.

Did I miss the internet? Certainly. Did I miss it terribly? Not really. I missed it as a puppy might temporarily miss his absent master, but not as an erotomaniac might miss his nonreciprocating lover after he has murdered her with a bread stick and small pair of tweezers. It was certainly discomfiting not being able to keep up with the latest events in my friends' lives, and inconvenient to not be able to look up how many of Great Britain's monarchs were women and whether their respective reigns had more benefits for the nation than those of their male counterparts. But this was no major grievance; I simply found other things to do.

What was more surprising was that my world continued to revolve around my laptop despite its lack of connectivity. I would, for example, spend hours shooting people on games regardless of the fact that these people were bots as opposed to the extensions of other human beings. I would watch films as opposed to reading books, since an analysis of the two activities highlighted the former option's advantage of reduced physical exertion (none of that page-turning business). I would even do something as boring as defrag my hard drive just to occupy myself.

I'm hooked, almost wired up, to my laptop, of which the internet is but a useful and sometimes amusing tool. Taking away my computer would have been like removing one of my limbs; debilitating, painful and somewhat bloody. but the lack of internet was simply like breaking a wrist; a pain in the arse but workable. Is this the condition of all human beings now and not just myself? I think so. We rely so much on technology that to take it away from us would be horrific. My girlfriend's mother has a cooker with a touchscreen interface that can keep an individual entertained for hours with the short series of chromatically ascending beeps that accompany it's being turned on. Ludicrous and somewhat pathetic, but unfortunately and despicably true.

And now I shall read a book. Unplug for a little while and let my battery run down. Who knows, it might do me some good.