Barbara Amiel

Diary – 28 September 2002

issue 28 September 2002

In the electronic age, a social disease is a virus you get from your email correspondents. And often from one-night stands. Three such co-respondents sent me word that as an entry in their ‘address book’ my computer now had some awful disease. Complicated instructions to erase followed. When questioned, not one of the owners of these infected emails could describe the address or special characteristics of their virus. ‘It’s the worst and I don’t understand it,’ whined one. I don’t have a card to give out and so I’ve luxuriated in the belief that my name and details remain my own. Now I realise that when I scribble my email address down on a bit of napkin in order to calm down an inebriated dinner partner searching for confirmation that the evening has been a success, I am likely to end up in the company of people I spend my life avoiding.

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