Mick Hartley

That's the internet….what it brings.

In full flow there's no one can compare with former Guardian editor Peter Preston:

It's rather like cursing in church, or copulating on the Queen's lawn. No good opinions will come of it. But how do you start your digital week? With junk, with spam, with emails offering to "energise my baby-maker", ­prevent "death by swine flu", and dispense "scintillating orgasms". Welcome to the 21st century, and a great deal of what we hate about it. Impotence, disease, frustration.

Just sit down and consider the most dire dishes of the day. Shall we obsessively discuss the death of newspapers, the end of five centuries of print? Or we could go one worse and ponder the demise of books themselves? There's porn and paedophilia, of course: giant helpings of fear and disgust on demand. There's terrorism and the latest sinister warnings from Osama and Co. There's the end of civilised life as we know it.

Whatever happened to community? Walk any high street and you'll see the shutters coming down. Traditional, human Britain is closing for business…..

I know the net is a wonder beyond compare. But I'm also glumly aware that it brings despond in its train, that much of what irks us most is digital cause and effect. Discuss? No, we don't want to know. Just like the blogger who won't think about electricity demand because "Oh yawn! … it's government's job to supply that demand" – just like spammers with scintillating orgasms for sale.