This is a book that my lover found fascinating. I've not yet read it. Thought it may be of interest to other bloggers and mentioned it in passing to Usksider when discussing email exchanges and cyber interactions...

http://www.theedge.abelgratis.co.uk/indrasinhaiview.htm

The Cybergypsies is a Scribner paperback original available now. (Trade paperback, 405 pages, £9.99; ISBN 0-684-81929-5)

Netsurfers are vulgar tourists. Cybergypsies are/were the hard-core travellers and explorers of cyberspace. The Cybergypsies is a kind of antique cyber-travel book, locating the strange, anarchic worlds of the online mavericks who display a curious combination of brilliance and delinquency.

It autobiographically describes one man’s obsessional exploration of early cyberspace over many years and the people he meets electronically, the cybergypsies: virus writers, hackers, witches, sex-peddlers, conmen, net vamps, randy paratroopers posing as girls; the A-bomb blueprints he was offered for sale. He recounts with startling honesty how he nearly lost everything and how the Net can be as dangerous and destructive as any drug addiction.

He also shows how the internet can be used constructively, as he describes how he, with Don McCullin, campaigned for human rights with desperate appeals for the Kurdish refugees in the wake of the Gulf War, involving Jeffrey Archer and justice for Bhopal’s gas victims.

My relationship with my lover is sustained in cyber and our several emails a day are a lifeline. I once read about the inelegance of modern-day texting and emailing, but feel it is to misunderstand the media. An elegant turn-of-phrase may be tapped on the keyboard as easily as written by hand. And while a beautiful script is a joy to behold, most of us do not write copperplate, and many struggle for mere legiblilty.

We do exchange words of love, elegence and passion at times, but not thrice daily! The everydaynesses and joy of seeing each other's names in our inboxes make the banal welcome as well.

I spent most of morning in bed drifting with Radio 4. Got up due to hunger and the allure of a fantasy bacon sarnie that became reality. Have read the news section of Observer - Advantage of working last night is collection of paper on way home so I didn't/don't have to venture out to collect. Also got some fresh veg and petrol from small Tesco's this a.m - Much quieter, as were roads early Saturday morning.
The sun is so hot I could feel a burning sensation as I sat on sofa! Now upstairs with window open. White and brown stump of snowman next door only hint of the recent weather.
Thanks for chasing up guidelines for publishers.
Hope you make most of 'vacant' day - Hopefully opportunity to recharge the batteries.
Love you,
Polly
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Talk of the everyday and the simple touching base is such a pleasure, that prose so short of Austen does not disappoint. It is lovely to be able to picture one's lover in familiar settings, which is why we take such pleasure in going out in Swansea and Cardiff as well as the more obvious indoor pleasures.

We did practice instant messaging for a while which was an amazingly sexy and fun pleasure, but sadly it seemed to make his computer blow a metaphorical gasket so we have desisted!