Apparently the government is wasting time and money setting up a training scheme that will teach old people how to send text messages.

I'm delighted as this means more time and money for me - not because I've been recruited to pass on nuggets of wisdom on the subject of texting shorthand but because it means I will not waste time trying to decipher text messages old people (namely my parents) keep trying to send me - and will therefore be able to spend that time doing the work I should be doing to earn money.

While they're at it, they should provide a course to teach the technically inept how to pass on email addresses.

This would also save me time and money, as I would not be forced to spend entire mornings trying to work out what the email address, written down by someone for whom anything connected with the internet is gobbledegook, actually is.

I have spent much of the past week doing just that, after a friend of a friend, who has moved to Denmark and had baby, passed on her email address to me.

This friend is not of the generation for whom IT was part of the curriculum and although she claims to be able to use a mouse, she is obviously not acquainted with even the basic concepts of sending an email.

"I've got that address for you," she said when I bumped into her,before producing a scrap of paper on which were written the words: "A, MARIE JOHNSON BIG A WITH A CIRCLE ALL AROUND OUTSIDE AT HOTMAIL DOTCOM. A IS A FUNNY A."

I laughed, when I read it but told her I thought I knew what she meant by a big a with a circle all around the outside otherwise known as a "funny a". "That's what she told me to write," she said, on the defensive. "I thought you would understand."

I did understand that bit, presuming that the "FUNNY A WITH A CIRCLE ALL AROUND THE OUTSIDE" was @.

What I couldn't quite work out, from what was written on the piece of paper, was how the name on the email address should be written, as it was so full of gaps.

"Is Marie Johnson all one word?" I asked, innocently enough but got the "you're a young fool" treatment in response, when she replied: "No, Marie is her middle name and Johnson her surname."

Rather than risk bashing my head against a brick wall by explaining the basic tenets of sending emails, I thanked her and went to try to send a message, with very little success.

First I tried sending it to a.mariejohnson@hotmail.com but the message came back with a recipient unknown tag. I tried a.marie-johnson, a.johnson, amariejohnson, amarie-johnson, a.marie_johnson and a_marie-johnson, all without finding any recipient of that name anywhere in the whole wide hotmail world.

Eventually, I hit a combination of dots dashes and names that actually had a recipient but she was not the friend I had been trying to email to congratulate on the birth of her baby.

She was not even a she but a he by the name of Andreas who replied to my message with the following: "Dear Lizzie, I was delighted to get your message as this is the first one I have received since taking evening classes in internet skills at my local over-sixties club in Malaga and signing up for a Hotmail account.

"I have not, however, recently had a baby, so perhaps you meant to send this message to someone else?

"This is the first time I have tried replying also to a message. Would you do me the kindness of replying so I can find out if I was successful in replying to you?"