Do you know what the Celts did when the Romans left Britain? Well of course you do, you guys know everything. Also, a modest knowledge of the workings of the Roman Empire would tell you that, to a very large extent, the occupied areas (most of them weren’t really countries yet, in any united sense) were happy to have the Romans kicking around organising, building and keeping them safe. SO when the Romans left Britain to protect their capital, there was a certain amount of anxiety. There was also, I have no doubt, at least one person saying ‘We used to manage without the Romans, you know’.

Well those people can shove off. The same argument is advanced all the time. We used to manage without mobile phones, you know. Well, yes, we did, but having mobile phones is better. It means you can more readily be in contact with people, for all sorts of good, useful and valid reasons, some of which are legitimately important. We also used to manage without penicillin, although a lot more of us died, and yes, we also used to manage without fire. Extend your definition of ‘manage’ to ‘some of us were alive’ and we ‘managed’ with more or less literally everything except breathable air.

Three paragraphs in and it might not surprise you to discover that all this ranting is to mitigate your lack of sympathy when you discover that I have been deprived of something that is not strictly a luxury. When I sent my copy in last week our esteemed editor advised me a) that I had sent last week’s column by mistake; and b) that mine was linked on the front page this week, so I should get lots of lovely feedback. Almost instantly, I discovered that I had accidentally used all of my download limit. No big problem there, only had to wait 2 days before I got a new limit. Then something else went wrong. It took a bit of a faff to find out what, for reasons I won’t bore you with, but apparently the transmitted I usually bounce off has developed a fault. As I write it should have been repaired yesterday, but hasn’t. Basically I have scarcely been online for about a week now. The cracks are beginning to show.

In the first place, in my defence, I am doing most of my job searching online. I have made the point in the past about how limiting this is, and I am now proving this point as I haven’t been able to do anything like a meaningful job search for three days. That last was in the library and, as such, I had 1 hour. Luckily I didn’t find anything, because a single application can take 20 minutes, and complex one can take bloody ages. I can happily spend 2 hours job searching online if I find a couple of jobs to apply for, and the bigger a backlog of e-mails for me to trawl through, the longer it takes

Managing caring in a couple can be stressful and difficult, it shifts the balance of power irrevocably and when one of you is under constant mental and/or physical stress sharing relaxing time together, so vital for any relationship, can be tough. With internet access we can browse through the BBC’s radio archives for the week and find anything we want to listen to. There’s loads of great stuff and it can happily fill and evening for us. At some point during the evening, she will probably fall asleep. The I have the internet for company, I can keep in touch with family, friends and random strangers, keep up with the news. I can also look online for the latest details of the government’s insane criteria for disability living allowance (you have to have 1 limb and no senses) it can provide conversation, amusement, entertainment, information, all from within the comfort and safety of my own home, for a reasonable price (I don’t actually pay it, but if I did it would be less than the cost of a single theatre ticket) and without me having to leave my wife behind or take her out for the evening when she is sick, tired or in pain.

So yes, I could manage without the internet. But I have adjusted so that the internet now meets demands that would still be in my life, internet or not. It helps me. Until I get it back, I will be a bit worse off. Bummer.

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