Well, I did warn you not to hold your breath: After a heady period when I was on the internet and even had the nerve to give my email address to friends, I am once again without either.

To my horror, just as I had got used to getting friendly little messages from a variety of sources (including some from people I had never heard of but who had obviously seen me as a good hit for almost anything under the sun in terms of things I might like to buy), one of my messages told me that, from a certain date, my service provider would cease to exist in the form in which I had got used to it and I would have to change tack.

"But don't worry," said the message, "download the following information and follow the instructions and all will be well.

"You will instantly become the proud owner of another service provider and your life will be enriched by your contact with the internet once again."

As my forays into the internet had been very minimal and not very successful, I did not feel the great surge of joy which this information was obviously intended to produce.

All I could think of was that this probably meant my computer-literate friends would once again take up residence in my house and end up hitting the computer or never speaking to me again.

So I decided to have a go at following the instructions which, to my amazement, I had managed to download off the internet.

Easy peasy to all you computer literate folk out there, I know, but to me it was like climbing the north face of the Eiger.

The only problem was that when I looked at it, both with my glasses on and with them off, it was like trying to read ancient Greek. So, rather cravenly, I phoned a friend.

If I had had the option I would have asked the audience and gone 50-50 as well!

The first contestant spent Saturday afternoon trying to follow the instructions and came back for a second slice of the action, or in this case inaction, on the Monday.

Calls to hideously expensive helplines produced little progress, so in the end we decided I must call in the wonderful computer doctor who had ridden, Sir Galahad-like, to my rescue before.

My voice quailed as I picked up the phone to confess that once again my ailing computer and I were in need of his ministrations.

He packed his little black bag with whatever it is that such angels of mercy carry with them on these occasions and came calling.

Some seven hours later he was still calling but I won't tell you what! He installed and uninstalled as though his life depended on it. There were moments when I felt that my life DID depend on it. It worked and then it stopped working.

Back to the beginning and a welcome note on the screen to me as a new user.

But my welcome was a bit lukewarm since it had disappeared from the screen by the time we repeated the exercise.

I am coming to the conclusion that my computer has a life of its own. Threaten it with buying another model and it behaves temporarily but as soon as it has fooled you into a false sense of security, it goes back to taunting you.

I am refusing to let my friends be beaten. That's if I have any friends left after this little episode.