In the annals of business acumen, no single act of commercial chutzpah can surpass the company manoeuvres carried out by Rupert Murdoch over the period 2010 to 2014.

To assess just how revolutionary, how completely beyond the reach of what any human individual had yet achieved in more than 30 millenniums of civilisation his actions were, it is useful to note that prior to the year 2010 the figure of Rupert Murdoch was one respected but never adored by people of influence who considered themselves his peers. True, he was the world's most successful and influential publisher.

Now in his mid-70s, he showed no sign of loosening the reins of power he held so firmly in his two gnarled hands. But there was talk. What would happen when his mental powers started to fade? Why had he not planned any orderly succession, whether to someone in his family or to a trusted colleague?

And how sure was his touch, now that the print media as well as film and television were fast looking obsolete against the rise of the digital citizenship. In short, was he beginning to think he was both infallible and immortal?

And so, when Rupert Murdoch called a meeting of his entire executive committee on 12 January 2014, many were expecting something momentous.

At the very least, the demand forming among the mass of executives and expensively shirted dogsbodies shortly before the great man entered the room was that, unless he laid before them a very clear pattern of succession, they would resign en masse and thus, surely, cause a collapse in his parent company. In one way at least, he met their demands.

The man, the figure, the legend, entered the room and asked for the lights to be dimmed. He began his powerpoint presentation, flashing a quick succession of slides and charts before this, his most important viewing audience. Corporate declarations tumbled out of him. 'I have purchased a 59 per cent stake in Sun Microsystems'; 'News Corp has consolidated its share position on the boards of 14 South Asian cellphone networks'; 'I have merged Transmutual Holdings with our southern American division to form a new parent group for all terrestrial entertainment networks.'

On and on they spurted. '... taking all the European subsidiary companies and merging them with a new North African web presence ...' No one knew where this was heading, but neither had anyone seen Murdoch so energised since his last marriage. '... promoting the chairman of Digital Investment to the new post of vice-president Corporate Sustenance ...'

And the phrases became stranger, introducing concepts and references that few in the room had heard before. '... executive director of the Mother-Board...'; '... a billion-dollar investment in skin and infrastructure ...'; '... company cells multiply exponentially ...'

And in the end it came: the announcement that would transform the world.

'And so, ladies and gentlemen, I have thrown into action a complicated sequence of company mergers and buy-outs, and a logarithmically positioned series of investments, that now mean all my main subsidiary companies form a unique pattern across the globe. It's a pattern so complex that no other sequence of values come close to it, save for the integers of DNA.

'And that is no accident. For I have arranged my companies in the one precise global sequence that will set the conditions right for the birth of life itself. My company is now so complex, so intelligent, so diverse and yet so intricately controlled that it has acquired all the first properties of a living organism. My company has become a life-form!

'Primitive at first, it will need nurturing from a top team of hand-picked executives, but within a year it will think for itself, feed itself, learn, defend and, if necessary, attack. Behold, I have created a living company. I have created Child International!'

At this, the magnificent man raised his left arm and the curtains behind him parted. On a large screen dominating the chamber could be seen a complex web of numbers, flickering and scrolling across the plasma. As the audience stared up at the figures, the pattern of digits seemed to alter slightly, as if winking back.

'That,' said Murdoch 'is Child International recognising your presence and, within the space of a microsecond, calculating the amount of shares it needs to buy and sell on Nasdaq in order to make it look as if it's blinking.'

The men and women in the room gasped in surprise and a little fear. 'What were the consequences of that action?' asked one middle-aged executive known for his good personnel skills.

'Our share value went down by 0.04 per cent and we had to lay off 1,500 workers in China.' The people groaned. Immediately, the screen flickered and the numbers on it formed the shape of a smile. A package arrived at the door to the room and, when it was opened, a small cube leapt out making the noise: 'Only joking!'

'You needn't worry,' said Murdoch. 'Child International was able, in a nano-instant, to pour just the right amount of financial investment into technological development that it was able, within 12 seconds of its last action, to launch on to the market a new electronic one-inch cube that can make more than 13,000 entertaining remarks. The Chirpy-Blok has already made us $4bn.'

There was silence in the room. The numbers on the screen stared accusingly at the people round the table, who each knew in their hearts what had to be done. One by one, the executives tendered their resignation, knowing that Murdoch had indeed appointed his successor and it wasn't going to be human.

So the living company, Child International, carried on trading successfully on its own for the next 24 years until, in 2038, it was bought by the Chinese and, two days later, committed suicide.

If, while walking your dog, you see a black Opel Vectra with a top-heavy pole sticking out of its roof, do not be alarmed. It is not a UFO or a van checking for TV licence-fee dodgers, but a Googlecam. As it proceeds, the eight cameras mounted on the top of the pole take an endless succession of digital pictures of the road and its environs. Each image is tagged with its precise location using GPS.

When the car returns to base, all the images and their GPS data are uploaded to Google, which then overlays them on Google Maps. The idea is that you type in a location and - Bingo! - you can see what you'd see if you were driving in that neighbourhood. In fact I've just taken a virtual drive round Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, something of a holy place for us ageing hippies.

Welcome to Google's Street View, which is currently available in some US cities and probably due in a lot more soon. The prospect that it might be coming to Britain has got the Daily Mail into a lather. This sinister technology, it raves, 'could be a privacy-invading nightmare'. Google's cars 'will photograph EVERY door in Britain'. The service 'will allow anyone in the world to type in a UK address or post code and instantly see a 360-degree picture of the street. It will include close-ups of buildings, cars and people. Critics say the site is a 'burglar's charter' that makes it easy for criminals to check out potential victims.'

Given that the Mail has been gung-ho about Britain's addiction to CCTV cameras, its newfound worry about privacy is laudable, but the grounds for its concern are puzzling. After all, Google Maps and Google Earth already provide invaluable information for burglars; they show who has swimming pools and unprotected back gardens, for example. So it's difficult to see what the larcenous value-added is from Street View, other than it may reveal which houses have burglar alarms and which do not.

The multiple sightings of the Googlecam in the UK - which have been cleverly overlaid on Google Maps by the online journal, The Register (see tinyurl.com/6lag7m) - suggest that the company has embarked on a large-scale UK trial of the technology. But it's not clear that the service would be legal here, or indeed in Europe generally, because our data-protection and privacy rules are more stringent those than those in America.

In Europe, litigation could be triggered by, say, images of an ageing rock star entering a rehab clinic, or by even more 'sensitive' pictures: the chap who's 'off sick' out shopping or the adulterer tending her lover's roses.

And it doesn't matter that the pictures were taken in a public place. 'If you are caught on camera and complain to Google,' says Struan Robertson of lawyers Pinsent Masons, 'Google will remove the pics. But that may not be enough for Europe's courts. Our data protection regime lets us take holiday snaps, even of strangers, provided we're doing so for private purposes. But if we're taking snaps for commercial use, where individuals are identifiable, there is no such exemption. We need to notify the subjects, and that's hard for Google to do. Even a loudspeaker on top of the camera cars ["Hi, it's Google here, say cheese everybody!"] might not suffice.'

Quite. But in a way the issue is not whether this Google innovation is permitted or not, but the general direction we're headed and the role Google might play in our collective future. Last week I wrote about the legal ruling which compelled Google to hand over to Viacom its computer logs of every single viewing of a YouTube video, including those by UK residents. The privacy implications of that ruling have since been mitigated by agreement that the data can be 'anonymised' by Google before handover. But, again, the direction is towards a world in which everything we do is monitored and logged - mostly by one company.

Google's mission, according to its corporate website, is 'to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful'. What we perhaps haven't fully realised is that these guys really mean it. Their ambition is at least as megalomaniacal as Bill Gates's vision of a computer on every desk running Microsoft software. So it's time we started thinking about what a world dominated by Google would be like. As it happens, some people have - and they've been publishing the results on YouTube. Then pour yourself a stiff drink.

john.naughton@observer.co.uk

You can suffer more than culture shock when holidaying abroad: there is a risk of electric shock too if you take your home-bought gadgets with you or are using foreign electrical goods bought from back-street stores.

Most travellers know that plugging in a hairdryer in Helsinki or an iPod charger in India requires an adaptor, but that is not the only consideration, says the Electrical Safety Council charity (ESC). Some adapters are not up to the job, especially for appliances that need an earth connection, such as hairdryers and steam irons. If you are packing electrical items this summer, look for the safety standard BS5733 on any adapter and always buy from a reputable source, preferably in the UK.

The perils of buying electrical equipment in foreign countries from uncertain sources were highlighted by the case of seven-year-old Connor O'Keefe, who was electrocuted on a family holiday to Thailand in December 2006. He was playing with his Game Boy, which was plugged into a faulty charger bought in Thailand.

Haidee Ryan, campaign manager at the ESC, says: 'Travellers should check ahead and also be vigilant at their destination, especially in Third World countries. Make sure there are no bare wires or light fittings without bulbs and report anything unusual like equipment that is giving off a buzzing sound or a burning smell. '

If the country you are visiting has a different voltage (this can vary from 100 to 240 volts; in the UK it's 230 volts), you might need a voltage transformer or converter, unless the appliance or its power supply has dual voltage rates.

If the frequency (the speed of the current) differs from the UK's 50Hz, as it does in the US and Mexico, where it is 60Hz, your appliance might not work properly. According to the ESC, a 50Hz clock may run faster in these countries. Holidaymakers unsure of a country's voltage could look at a lightbulb, where the voltage is usually printed.

Electrical retailer Currys reports an increase in the number of customers with second homes abroad who are seeking advice on technical problems because they have kitted out their foreign property with equipment bought in the UK. The company says differing radio frequencies, manufacturer programming and unpredictable electrical power can render this equipment useless. Radios, DVD players and TVs can cause particular frustrations.

John Wright, electrical engineer for Currys, says: 'While with many household products it's just a matter of swapping the plugs, others may only offer limited use, or in some cases will not work at all. People who are purchasing products to take abroad should always check with the manufacturer or store so they are not left disappointed.' Homeowners are also advised that adapters are for temporary use only. 'If you are living abroad you should make longer-term arrangements.'

Currys warns shoppers that digital radios may let them down abroad: just 20 per cent of stations in France and Spain and 5 per cent in Italy transmit at the required frequency. Televisions more than five years old are unlikely to work, and even the newer models will offer limited access to digital services.

The hazards of using incompatible electrical equipment also face visitors to the UK. The ESC says fire services report a rise in the number of incidents caused by visitors using the wrong plugs, particularly eastern Europeans using two-pin plugs in three-pin sockets and jamming a screwdriver into the third hole.

Phil Buckle, director of the ESC, says: 'While two-pin plugs are safe to use in their countries of origin, they are not designed for direct use with UK electrical installations.' He said eastern Europeans could easily convert their appliances for safe use in the UK with a three-pin conversion plug.

Time-wasting is not just an irritating habit. It is an affliction that ruins millions of lives and often requires therapy and other treatment for sufferers, psychologists have warned.

According to new research, one person in five now suffers from the problem so badly that their careers, relationships and health are threatened. Many researchers blame computers and mobile phones for providing too many distractions for people.

'The subject is seen as joke,' said Professor Joseph Ferrari of DePaul University in Chicago. 'But the social and economic implications are huge. These people need therapy. They need to change the way they act and think.'

Ferrari says that chronic procrastination is now so serious a condition it needs to be recognised by clinicians. In a study to be published later this year, he estimates that 15 to 20 per cent of people are chronic procrastinators. 'We now have data on 4,000 people, and it doesn't seem to matter what age you are, or your sex or background.'

He has devised a questionnaire to help diagnose the condition, which he says is 'much more common than depression or common phobias'. Procrastination also has knock-on effects - it encourages depression, lowers self-esteem, causes insomnia, and indirectly affects health by discouraging visits to the dentist or doctor. Sufferers are also more likely to have accidents at home involving unmended appliances.

Cognitive psychologist Professor John Maule, of Leeds University's business school, agreed that a significant proportion of the population were prone to procrastination, and argued that mood changes - particularly depression - might be to blame.

Research by Professor Piers Steel from Calgary University indicates that the incidence of chronic procrastination has risen dramatically in recent decades, from one person in 20 to one in four, as new technology has come to dominate our lives. Even the beeps notifying the arrival of email are said to be causing a 0.5 per cent drop in gross domestic product in the United States, costing the economy $70bn a year.

Ferrari, however, is less convinced that new technology is to blame for time-wasting. 'People have wasted time for centuries,' he said. 'Lots of people, particularly people who often have to work under time constraints, put work off because they kid themselves that they work best when under pressure, when there's a deadline.

'Studies have shown this isn't true. They're conveniently forgetting the times when it all went horribly wrong - and selectively remembering the odd occasion when things went well under severe time pressure.'

Once, humans probably did have stronger excuses for delaying chores that didn't need immediate attention, say brain scientists such as Alan Sanfey at Arizona University, whose work has shed light on the evolutionary origins of procrastination.

It appears that the brain is divided into two parts. One triggers 'automatic responses' which take precedence over everything else - such as fleeing sabre-toothed tigers. The other governs 'deliberate responses' - writing that report due next week or booking a visit to the optician. Evolution has dictated that the former take precedence. Today there aren't any sabre-toothed tigers, but we still put things off.

Almost a million UK households could access websites known to host images of child sex abuse despite a government pledge made two years ago to stop access to paedophile sites.

Last night a coalition of leading children's charities, including Barnardo's, the NSPCC and National Children's Homes, described the situation as 'completely unacceptable'. They have written to the Home Office minister in charge of crime reduction, Vernon Coaker, urging him to take immediate steps to ensure all telecom companies offering internet access block customers from being able to see images that in some cases show children as young as a year old being sexually abused.

Around 5 per cent of consumer broadband connections can access the images because their internet service providers (ISPs) chose not to subscribe to a scheme introduced by the Internet Watch Foundation to bar known paedophile websites.

The list is available to all ISPs and companies such as BT and Vodafone have signed up to take it. Updated twice daily, it contains between 800 and 1,200 live child-abuse websites at any one time. But the revelation that some internet companies are refusing to sign up to the list undermines a key government pledge to tackle paedophile material on the internet.

In May 2006, Coaker said he hoped all internet companies would sign up to the scheme and that, if there was not 100 per cent take-up by the end of last year, the government would look to compel the industry to 'face up to its responsibilities'.

In their letter to Coaker, the children's charities said it was now time for the government 'to draw a line under this issue' by getting 100 per cent compliance from the industry.

Volvo S80

£20,304

Miles per gallon: 49.6

Seats: 5

Good for: born agains

Bad for: porn barons

There are many thoughts that could flit across the mind of the owner of a forecourt-fresh motor: the smell of the leather, the glint of the polished bonnet, the lure of the long road ahead, the carpets still free of fromage frais and breadsticks. But few will be thinking of the disposal of their new car at the end of its life. And yet we should. An EC report has stated that by 2015 all cars should be 85 per cent recyclable and reusable. From material selection in the manufacturing and low-emission motoring, to its final journey to the knacker's yard, carmakers are being forced to consider a vehicle's entire life impact.

Over at Volvo, they didn't feel the need to wait another seven years to meet these targets. Like the class swot who hands in his homework days before it's due, Volvo made these grades in 2002. It's all part of the marque's 'clean inside and out' programme. This year its factories in Sweden and Belgium switched to green electricity in the form of hydropower; the steel, iron and aluminium used in construction is all from recycled sources, wherever possible - the plastic battery covers of old Volvos become the wheel-arch liners on new models for instance.

Now, the brand's top executive saloon is going green from cradle to grave. The comfy and classy S80 was 'refreshed' last year, and has now taken possession of a super-efficient 2-litre diesel engine, enabling it to do almost 50mpg, compared with the piffling 23.7mpg of the top-of-the-range, all-wheel drive

V8 version. A pair of constipated Friesians would produce more effluvium than this eco-conscious executive runaround.

The focus on cleanliness takes its toll on performance - the S80 is so unengaging it makes eating a bowl of noodles with your dentures out seem like an adrenaline sport. But if arriving safely at your destination - perhaps enjoying a lower-back massage and the benefits of a cool-ventilated seat - take priority, then the S80 can't be beat.

Safety is a mantra for Volvo and the cars take a zero-tolerance approach to danger. The Blind Spot Information System uses warning lights in the A-pillars to alert you when an overtaking vehicle is in your blind spot; Adaptive Cruise Control keeps you at a safe distance from the car in front, and a Personal Car Communicator has a transponder with a heartbeat sensor to let you know if someone is still in your Volvo after the alarm has been activated. The alternative being that it is a pulse-less zombie who has stolen it.

Volvo has also announced plans to introduce a City Safety system, which at speeds of under 19mph uses laser-sensor technology to detect vehicles up to 10 metres in front. If the gap between you and the car in front closes and you remain inactive, the car applies the brakes automatically. (Surveys show three-quarters of all collisions take place at speeds of under 18mph, and in half of them there is evidence the driver has not braked at all before.) It's all part of Volvo's plan to keep you - and its cars - out of that graveyard, no matter how eco-friendly it may be.

martin.love@observer.co.uk

It seemed an ordinary day at Google's offices in Tel Aviv, Israel. Until an alarming discrepancy glued eyes to computer screens. Google Hot Trends is a feature intended to give 'a snapshot of what's on the public's collective mind', according to the internet giant, by displaying the fastest-rising search terms on the web. Top of the list was not Batman, iPhone or sex. It was not a word at all. It was a swastika.

Somehow, the icon appropriated by Nazi Germany, not readily found on computer keyboards, had caught all-powerful Google napping. The company was forced to issue an apology over the failure of its automated system to 'identify and remove inappropriate or offensive material', leaving its engineers to manually take down the symbol after two hours.

How did the swastika get there? Why did so many people search for it at the same time? It was a demonstration of how peculiar fads, jokes or videos can come out of nowhere and run riot across the web. Such phenomena are known as 'memes' - cultural fragments that catch someone's eye, get forwarded to friends and spread like a virus.

The invisible hand behind many memes, apparently including the googled swastika, is a website called 4chan. From semi-literate cats to the 'ironic' comeback of singer Rick Astley, this online community is building a reputation as a nursery of all that is weird and wacky and likely to be landing in your inbox tomorrow.

Suddenly, 4chan's elusive creator found himself the subject of articles in two of America's heavyweight publications: Time magazine and the Wall Street Journal, which named him as Christopher Poole, a New Yorker who was only 15 when, with the help of his mother's credit card, he launched 4chan from his bedroom five years ago. Time hailed him as the 'Master Of Memes' and described 4chan as 'the wellspring from which a lot of internet culture, and hence popular culture, bubbles'.

But how does it work? 4chan began as a simple message board with pictures and text. Anyone could contribute on any subject, posting a photograph of their pet, sounding off about a politician, debating the merits of a player. Sometimes other users will reply and begin a strand of conversation. The images and comments now appear under 44 topic headings ranging from fashion, sports and video games to weapons, the paranormal and 'sexy beautiful women' - the most popular by a long way is 'Random'. Inspired by a forum in Japan, the site has an unpolished retro look, as rough and ready as a scrapbook. It is an online community at its purest and rawest, the antithesis of polished networks such as Facebook: 4chan is like a brick wall where people can daub graffiti without fear of a comeback.

Child pornography is banned, but otherwise there are few rules. Some posts are gloriously childish and nonsensical. Others can be racist, homophobic and misogynistic and peppered with four-letter words. Unlike most social networks, no one has to register a name or sign in. Consequently, the community has been described as a lawless Wild West of the web, a place of uninhibited bawdiness and verbal violence. A teenager in Texas posted a photograph of hoax pipe bombs and a threat to blow up his school on the anniversary of 9/11, but another user contacted police and the teenager was arrested.

However, the free-for-all has also been liberating, turning 4chan into an ideas laboratory and unleashing a ferocious creative force. Though most of what appears soon vanishes and is forgotten, the stuff that survives can easily jump to the wider web community and 'go viral', passing from person to person across the world. It is an ability envied by advertising agencies, which have long sought to drum up publicity by word of mouth or now through viral videos of their own, relying on users to do the work for them. But 4chan just does it for fun with the help of a big army of users: 8.5 million page views a day and 3.3 million visitors a month. The swastika was one such stunt. It appears that a post on 4chan instructed people to Google '...#21328;'. When thousands did, they discovered that it was a piece of code which, when processed by a web browser, translates into a swastika. Their collective curiosity unwittingly sent the symbol soaring to the top of Google's Hot Trends.

One of 4chan's biggest hits is a prank known as 'bait-and-switch'. You receive a link to an 'amazing website'. But when you click, it is in fact a link to a music video for Rick Astley's 1987 hit single 'Never Gonna Give You Up'. It is estimated that more than 10 million people have been 'rickrolled'. The first such joke on 4chan was 'duckrolling', in which a link to a popular celebrity or news item would instead lead to a photomontage of a duck with wheels.

In another parade of silliness, 4chan users began a Saturday ritual of posting pictures of cats, for no particular reason except that they could. This soon became known as 'Caturday', with humorous phrases posted beside the so-called 'LOLcats' - now the subject of LOLcat T-shirts, buttons and fridge magnets. When a plump grey cat appeared with the caption 'I can has cheezburger?', it caught the imagination of a man in Hawaii and became the subject of his blog, icanhascheezburger.com. The blog was sold for about $2m (£1m).

Last week 4chan was at it again. The site rallied users to search for 'Scientology is a cult' and, written upside down, the words 'fuck you Google'. Again, both leapt to the top of Google Hot Trends before being removed. 4chan users were also accused of attacking Habbo, a virtual world for children, by flooding it with avatars made to look like black men wearing Armani suits. In a previous raid, they lined up avatars to form the shape of a swastika.

Poole had never revealed his identity until Time and the Wall Street Journal came calling. When contacted by The Observer through email, he replied: 'I am extremely busy this week and will not have time to conduct a phone interview.' He suggested questions by email but did not respond to them. His message was signed 'moot', a code name he uses on 4chan for reasons no one has yet fathomed. 'My personal private life is very separate from my internet life,' he told Time. 'There's a firewall in between.'

Poole set up 4chan because he wanted to share his passion for Japanese comics and TV rather than as a moneyspinner, which is just as well. Although the site is popular, its scurrilous reputation makes it difficult to sell advertising space. Poole said: 'That's been an uphill battle for me personally. My biggest time spent has been convincing companies in marketing potential in 4chan but no one sees eye to eye.'

For now he will have to be content with shaping western culture as the most influential web entrepreneur you've never heard of. 'Coarse as it is, 4chan has no rival as a hothouse for memes; they're bred and refined, and then they can escape and run amuck through the culture at large,' Time enthused. 'For better or for worse, this is what the counterculture looks like today: raw, sarcastic, bare of any social or political agenda but frequently funny as hell.'

A virulent infection is destroying the audio and videotapes once used to capture important moments of family life and great historic events. The fungal blight, or 'tape mould', has already ruined thousands of miles of audio and video tape in Britain and, according to specialist restorers, much more is likely to be deteriorating, unobserved, in storage. The infection of VHS cassettes and of the audio cassettes popular in the 1980s and 1990s is increasing at an alarming rate.

'We used to get around one or two cases a year, and now about 10 per cent of all the work that is sent to us is mouldy. But sadly there is nothing we can do about it here,' said Chris Frear, who runs a restoration business in Scotland.

The wet summers of the last three years have taken the problem to epidemic proportions.

'It has got to the stage that we open up all the packages of tapes we are sent in a separate room, away from our playing equipment and then we wash and disinfect our hands, because it is so contagious. If it got on to the tape heads in our machines, it would spread everywhere. It's almost like the measles.'

Tapes of family footage stored inside cardboard boxes in damp domestic cellars or lofts are at particular risk, but curators of larger private and public archives are also often unaware that damp conditions or temperature variations can allow one infected item to decimate an entire collection.

'We do see tapes with fungal growth, and if we catch it early enough we can often save the recording,' said Nigel Bewley, head sound engineer at the British Library Sound Archive in London. 'We use a quarantine room and send mouldy tape away to be sterilised first, often through a process of irradiation. The danger is that live spores could reach the rest of our collection.'

Video and audio tape is made from cellulose coated with ferric oxide, but, just like the sticky tape on an old parcel, it dries out and becomes brittle with age. Modern techniques can combat this ageing process, allowing the tapes to be digitally copied, but mould that has eaten into a tape is defeating conservationists. Typically tapes with the fatal fungus look as if they are covered with a fine white dust.

'Mould is a much more serious thing than snapped or worn tapes, and it's heartbreaking to have to ring up a customer who was so thrilled to have at last found a missing tape, just to tell them its unplayable,' said Beth Frear, who works with her son in their family business, Precious Voices, based in Dumfries and Galloway.

'A typical museum collection is just boxes on a shelf or in an ill-ventilated store cupboard. Few curators realise the material is degrading all the time and think that it will keep until some miraculous budget bonus will allow them to digitise it,' said Frear.

Yet the value of preserving personal recordings may be impossible to estimate. 'It's hard to pick out special examples - but there was a gentleman in the British diplomatic service who had been under siege in his residence during the partition of Pakistan into the present Pakistan and Bangladesh. Each day he had rung around his British friends to see if they were still alive and recorded their phone conversations on his reel-to-reel machine. It's all terribly stiff upper-lipped, but there, blow by blow, is a daily account of who was attacked and who had been mortared in the previous 24 hours.'

The Frears have rescued many aural histories, including the account of the life of a stallion walker who led a shire stallion from farm to farm to breed the horses for ploughing and a recording of a Scottish kippering girl who tells of her gruelling work in the 1870s and 1880s, following the herring fleet as it moved south each year from Aberdeen to Lowestoft.

'Just in the last few days we had our first birth recording,' said Frear. 'It was taped in Brazil in the 1960s and is a blow by blow account of the journey to hospital, the birth of the baby and its first cries.'

The British Library Sound Archive advises that all stored tapes, audio, visual and computer, should be kept in the dark, away from heat sources and with no extreme temperature fluctuations.

Save your souvenirs

VHS and audio tape should not be stored in:
· garden sheds
· lofts, cellars or anywhere where the temperature fluctuates

Tapes should be kept:
· in the dark
· away from direct heat sources
· labelled in a cool cupboard that is heated during the winter

How to deal with tape mould
· Look for a fine white dust
· Don't blow it away across the rest of your collection
· Don't play the damaged tape (you could infect the machine)
· Don't throw away mouldy cardboard casings or surrounding storage boxes without noting down the details of the recording, such as the date, location and names
· Do not place near other newer tapes
· Wash your hands thoroughly after touching infected tape
· Send partially damaged tapes for professional sterilisation (either through irradiation or in an oxygen vacuum). The dead spores can then be delicately brushed away. The tape should be cleaned with swansdown, which is a lint-free cloth

Israel is flaunting its "moral victory" in this week's uneven prisoners-for-bodies swap with an Arabic-language clip on YouTube that condemns Hizbullah as a terrorist organisation that sees a "child murderer" as a hero.

Ofer Gendelman, an Arabic-speaking spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, scorned scenes in Beirut that saw the freed Samir Qantar embraced not only by Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, but also by the Lebanese president, prime minister and other dignitaries .

"This is a child-killer whom Hizbullah welcomes with praise, cheers and parades," Gendelman said. "This is a savage murderer whom you extremists see as a hero. "

Using YouTube is new for the Israeli government, which released Qantar and four other Lebanese prisoners, and 200 bodies, to secure the release of two soldiers captured in 2006, though it knew they were almost certainly dead.

Hizbullah did not produce any significant new information about Ron Arad, an air force navigator who was shot down over Lebanon in 1986.

Israel was also accused of hacking into Lebanon's phone network to issue threats. Hizbullah's television station, al-Manar, reported that Israel had sent hundreds of voice messages to phones in Lebanon, threatening retaliation for any new attack.

Lebanon's telecommunications minister, Jubran Basil, ordered his staff to take all necessary steps to stop such a "flagrant violation" of his country's sovereignty. Voice and SMS messages were used as part of Israeli psychological warfare operations during the 2006 fighting.

Remember Skoda jokes? Why do Skodas have heated rear windows? What do you call a Skoda with twin exhaust pipes? How do you double the value of your Skoda? And so on. They were never funny. And they haven't worked for a long time, not since Skodas effectively became Volkswagens and stopped breaking down. The last one still just about works (answer: fill the tank), albeit as a reflection on the price of oil rather than the crapness of Skodas. Credit crunch humour, ha ha ha. And, actually, this is a frugal Skoda Fabia GreenLine Estate, so I'm assuming it runs on fresh air and the scent of summer flowers.

I'm not sure about GreenLine as a name for a car. It's not just that upper-case L in the middle, which is clearly a crime against the English language. More importantly, Green Line is a bus, isn't it? I've seen them on the motorways - Green Line coaches. You can't name a car after a bus. What next? A Skoda National Express? A Bendy Skoda - banned in London because the mayor doesn't like them?

Actually, I don't think Boris Johnson would like any Skoda. As someone who lives in the past, he probably thinks the jokes still apply. Skodas are transport for poor people, the next (small) step up from a bus. Let them drive Range Rovers.

I like this car, though. It's not beautiful or glamorous. It's workmanlike. If it were a worker, it would be an immigrant worker - from eastern Europe. Which is precisely what it is, so it's not surprising. That's not to say eastern Europeans aren't beautiful or glamorous (careful, Boris). They are, just not this one. This one works well, and it's not too expensive, and you're better off with it than you would be with a British one or a French one.

Inside it's functional, rather than plush. You would never say you were cocooned in your Skoda: you're just in it, innit? And with its 1.4-litre diesel engine, don't go looking across at anyone boy-racerishly at the lights, unless you're doing so ironically (a better Skoda joke).

They've made this GreenLine (urrggh) model more thrifty by lowering it, and putting a panel underneath, and removing the spare wheel. Lord knows what happens if you get a puncture - I guess you have to push, while the heated rear window keeps your hands warm (the answer to the first "joke"). It has only one exhaust pipe, so you can't do the wheelbarrow thing (the second). But it all means emissions are just 109g/km and you can do 69mpg, which is pretty good for an estate. There's even a meter on the dashboard that tells you how many miles you're getting to the gallon, something I became obsessed with. 60, 65... go on, 70! Maybe mpg could be the new mph. Jeremy? Boris? Or, better still, you should be able to key in the day's price for a litre of diesel and it would display a price per km - that would make people drive more responsibly (ie, less).

This car is not a pulling car. It's not a pushing car, either. It's just a car that goes from A to B. But because of the mean and lean way it does so, A can be as far as 689 miles from B, and you still won't have to stop to fill up. Which is lucky really, because if you do double the value of a Skoda by filling up, then a tank of diesel is going to cost you £12,145. Which sounds about right at the moment.

Skoda Fabia GreenLine Estate 1.4 TDI

Price: £12,145
Top speed 105mph
Acceleration 0-62 in 13.7 seconds
Average consumption 68.9mpg
CO2 emissions 109g/km
Eco rating 9/10
At the wheel Ken Livingstone
Bound for B, from A
In a word Steady

I have been looking at ways of cutting my electricity usage. In my garden is a large pond with a waterfall, which has a pump running all the time. Are there any solar-powered pond pumps on the market that might work as well?

These gizmos are coming on to the market: the £45 Oxygenator Plus from Smart Solar (smartsolar.com) is suitable for some ponds, but is probably not big enough for yours. Take a look at the Sunjet 900 (about £210, also from smartsolar.com), which has a flow rate of 900 litres an hour. Don't forget that your panel will need to be placed in direct sunlight.

I'm trying to buy a webcam for my Mac, but they seem to be Windows-only.

Apple users remain cut adrift in terms of extras for their computers, and webcams are particularly difficult: not only does every new Mac now come with a built-in webcam, but Apple was forced to stop selling its own iSight camera because it was environmentally unfriendly. Your best bet isn't a special model, but a piece of software that enables you to use these ordinary, inexpensive cameras. Visit icanhaz.com/webcam for more information.

· Email your problems to gadget.clinic@guardian.co.uk

For about 20 years I've written up to 200,000 words each year on an Amstrad. I've loved it dearly and won't have a word said against it, though the world mocks and ridicules. I have two, each a PCW 9512, in London and in our Lakeland home. Two Amstrads, that's me. Beat that, Two Jags.

It does everything I want. I can delete, move stuff around, as long as it's not too much at one time. There are no fancy extras, no email or internet. With books, I send the manuscript to the publisher and they have to key it into their computer. With journalism, I print out a copy, then fax it.

I'd never get away with this if I were starting from scratch, but it's been accepted and worked brilliantly - till now. The problem is faxing. I continually have to ring up to check they've received it. More and more often they can't find it. The fax machine is in a dusty corner, out of paper, broken, no one uses it. I scream and shout, and have to fax it again, sitting on the phone till it starts spewing out at the other end. The death of the fax means, alas, I'll have to dump my Amstrad.

For several years now my children have been telling me I'd love Google. It is true that in the last year I've regularly rung my older daughter, Caitlin, and said, er, could you just look up the 1938 Cup Final score? Is Muriel Spark still alive? Was Donald McGill Scottish? I'm astounded that, in seconds, while talking to me, she's found the answer.

I took soundings and was advised that the best thing for me, simple and efficient, was an Apple laptop, something called a MacBook. It arrived two weeks ago and I must admit it is beautiful - pure white, so clean, so sleek. How can so many marvels be contained in so small a place? It has a built-in camera, so I can have video chat with anyone in the world, as long as they have a similar Apple. Very handy when I ring the Apple experts for help - which, alas, I do almost every day.

I feel so stupid, incompetent, halfwitted. It has made me so depressed, kept me awake at night. It's partly that I've never used a computer before, so I can't direct the cursor, the thing with the arrow. I have to press a pad to operate it, but it rushes off, out of control, hides in the corner, down the back of the sofa.

The keyboard is flat, with so many small, confusing keys. My arthritic hands are used to a raised keyboard, with few, but big, simple buttons. I keep touching the wrong thing and the screen goes wild and I froth at the mouth, roar and shout, but can't get out of it or understand the language. On my Amstrad, I have a key marked Exit. Easy, huh? On the MacBook I have to press a key marked CMD, plus Q. It's all gibberish.

I hate Word, so complicated, with up to 15 stages before I can send copy. Why can't I just write something, then press send? My Amstrad is so simple: one button and it gets printed. And it has a lovely empty screen to work on.

With Word, the screen is so cluttered. At the top and bottom are stupid symbols, like a fruit machine, offering facilities I don't want, which I press by mistake and end up shouting. There's a compass, which when you press says Safari. You what? I pressed an illustration of what looked like a glass of water and the word Trash appeared. I asked for an instruction manual and was told you'll get all that on the screen - but I can't get into the screen. So it's catch-22 as well.

What am I going to do? Calm down, says my adviser. I have to be patient. Just play on it, till it feels second nature. On the Amstrad, I didn't have to think. I just wrote. My Apple is a little gem, a miracle. Not its fault. It's now looking at me reproachfully. Because yes, I've done this on my trusty Amstrad. What a coward. But for the last time. I am going to stick in at the Apple. I can't give up, not again. Life has moved on. As I have to...

· Stephen Fry returns next week.

HMV is extending to its high-street stores a controversial VAT-avoidance scheme that it currently operates solely through the group's website, which is based offshore. The move will offer shoppers discounts and free delivery on out-of-stock titles, at the expense of Treasury coffers.

The retailer is planning to install instore "HMV Delivers" kiosks in its 250 stores. Customers will be able to place orders for CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray Discs and console games and avoid the 17.5% VAT charged on conventional instore purchases.

The terminals bring a ballooning offshore tax ploy, already exploited by major music and DVD websites including HMV.com, to Britain's high streets. The ploy is a fundamental challenge to the government's direct taxation regime. If copied by other high-street chains and supermarkets, it could divert hundreds of millions of pounds from the Treasury. Woolworths is also testing similar terminals in three stores.

HMV's new terminals offer "free home delivery" not from the group's London distribution centre, but from its base on the Channel Islands tax haven of Guernsey. The extra expense of postage is paid for many times over by avoiding VAT.

HMV initially refused to answer questions on its Guernsey operations, telling the Guardian that VAT-free transactions were blocked on all store terminals. But sample purchases at a number of stores showed this was not the case. HMV then said that after trials of various pricing strategies in a few stores, it planned to restrict VAT-free purchases on terminals to products the customer is unable to find on shelves because they are out of stock. This will "remain a convenient, but very marginal channel for customers and sales," a spokesman said. He added the main function of the terminals in the future would be to offer digital downloads.

The tax ploy, which is not unlawful, works by exploiting a VAT exemption on goods priced below £18 that are imported by individuals into the UK from outside the European Union. Known as "low value consignment relief", it has been enshrined in European law for 15 years. But the arrival of online retailing has seen the relief, originally designed to ease the administrative burden on marginal trade, exploited on a scale that was never anticipated.

Initially, HMV was slow to exploit the VAT ploy on the web, seeing cut-price internet retailers as a threat to its stores. In recent years, however, the group has been catching up fast with the pioneers of the VAT relief scheme, such as Jersey-based Play.com. HMV.com gets 1m hits a week.

In March 2007, new chief executive Simon Fox put HMV Guernsey at the heart of his strategy to turn around the struggling retailer. He pledged to expand online sales through the group's Channel Islands base from 6% of HMV's UK sales, to 20% by 2010, and promised to double spending on marketing the website.

HMV told the Guardian its VAT-free sales for the last financial year amounted to about £50m. The loss to the Treasury in unpaid VAT was £8.75m.

HMV's parent company, HMV Group, incurred a total UK corporation tax bill for the same 12 months of £11.4m. More than £8 in every £10 of sales from HMV.com for the last financial year related to VAT-free purchases. Of the 200 bestselling CDs and DVDs available on HMV.com, 196 titles qualify for VAT exemption.

Analysts at Lehman Brothers, the group's corporate broker, have suggested HMV will have to grow web sales to more than £200m by 2010 if Fox is to meet his target of generating 20% of earnings online. The Guardian estimates HMV's Guernsey website may be costing the Treasury more than £30m a year in lost revenue in two years' time.

The British government has put pressure on authorities in Jersey, who have taken actions against a small number of operations deemed to have set up in the island purely for the purposes of exploiting the relief. Officially, ministers and the tax authorities have for years had VAT relief operations under "close review" and have said they will consider cutting the £18 threshold or removing exemption from CDs and DVDs.

Last month, the Treasury's financial secretary, Jane Kennedy, was asked in parliament to clarify the scale of low value consignment relief not just on CDs and DVDs, but on health food supplements, contact lenses, flower deliveries and all product categories. She pointed to official estimates in 2006 of around £90m a year in unpaid VAT - a figure tax campaigners believe is out of date, and too low.

Nevertheless, home delivery exports to the UK have become a major industry in the Channel Islands. Retailers are struggling to find staff and warehouse space on the islands to meet demand. Of the seven CD-selling websites most visited on the internet in the UK, as defined by web traffic monitoring firm Hitwise, all exploit import VAT relief.

Better offshore

HMV does not advertise the difference between many of their store prices and those available in VAT-free, home-delivery web deals. Here are examples:

Desperate Housewives
Series three DVD: instore, £27. HMV.com, £17.99. (All HMV.com prices include home delivery).

Prime Suspect
10 DVD boxed set: instore, £25. HMV.com, £17.99.

Brothers and Sisters
Series one on DVD: instore, £30. HMV.com, £17.99.

There Will Be Blood
DVD: instore, £14.99. HMV.com, £12.99.

Harry Potter: Years 1-5
10 DVDs. Instore, £25. HMV.com, £17.99.

Coldplay: Viva la Vida
CD: instore, £10.99. HMV.com, £8.99.

Duffy: Rockferry
Instore, £10.99. HMV.com, £8.99.

Paul Weller: 22 Dreams
Instore, £9.99. HMV.com, £8.99.

eMusic, one of Apple's most aggressive rivals in online music retail, will launch a radically overhauled website on Tuesday, July 22, combining content and features from the web's most popular social networks and media sharing sites.

As part of a strategy to focus on discovering new music, profiles from Wikipedia, photos from Flickr and videos from YouTube will sit alongside recommendation and sharing tools for artists and bands featured on the new look eMusic site.

The US firm, which claims to be "a strong number two" to Apple, said its new offering "tears down the walls" of the music retail world by opening up its site content to users and encouraging them to bring in content from the rest of the web.

eMusic's users will be able to access social networking site Facebook, bookmarking services Delicious, Magnolia and Reddit, recommendation system Digg and the social news site Newsvine, among others.

Aggregated content will sit alongside reviews and profiles by eMusic's 250 music writers, including Newsday jazz specialist Kevin Whitehead and blues writer John Morthland, a former associate editor of Rolling Stone.

"We have an ethos here of trying to innovate constantly - you really can't stand still," said the eMusic chief executive, David Pakman.

"You have to look at what happens in the behaviour of digital consumers, and think 'what does digital music look like in 2010 or 2011?'," Pakman added.

He said consumers find most of their music through blogs, word of mouth, social networks or online retail, and that radio and TV have little influence on people discovering new artists.

eMusic does not have deals with the major music companies - EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner - but focuses on independent labels, offering a set number of DRM-free MP3 downloads for a fee each month, from £10 for 30 songs to £14.99 for 75 songs.

The US company generates 80% of its revenues from the domestic American market, but said its UK business was growing more quickly.

Pakman said the site sells between 7m and 8m songs globally each month, adding that global revenues and subscriptions would rise by 40-50% this year.

eMusic will also launch an extensive music recommendation system with "unprecedented accuracy" in late September, a "visual breadcrumbs" navigation feature and improved search.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

I'm remembering the scene in Shrek. Princess Fiona awakes, and expects a delightful Prince Charming scene, all birds and flowers. Instead she is grabbed roughly by Shrek, who heads at top speed for the castle's exit with her under his arm. As things get worse and she realises they're being chased by something large and fire-breathing, the penny drops.

"Wait," she says, "YOU DIDN'T KILL THE DRAGON?"

"It's on my to-do list," Shrek growls back.

What's got me thinking about that? Principally, the fire-breathing dragons on Apple's to-do list for the iPhone. There's so much that isn't yet done, and which don't show many immediate signs of getting done.

Does it matter? Hell yes. Because as the developer Fraser Speirs noted the other day, demographics is destiny: "[The] iPhone OS is Apple's mainstream platform for 2012 and beyond. It's a bold prediction, but the numbers seem fairly clear.

"There are 28m Mac OS X machines in the field. There are already at least 7m iPhones (25% of the total number of Macs), and Apple continues to hold to its aim of selling 10m iPhones by end 2008."

He adds quickly - and it's also a point worth making - that this doesn't mean of necessity that Mac OS X, the one that runs on notebook and desktop computers, is going away, nor that Apple is about to stop making computers. Its ferocious legal assault on the clone-making company Psystar, which it only accuses of copyright infringement, induced copyright infringement, breach of contract, trademark infringement, trade dress infringement and unfair competition (why not throw in "not looking both ways before crossing the road" too, for what it's worth?) shows that it's still defending its hardware business aggressively.

Psystar has been quoted - and is quoted in the court document - saying that it has sold "thousands" of its cloned-up machines, which have a PC chassis but run Mac OS X. Even though Apple is selling millions of machines every quarter (with the latest forecast to be 2.5m for the just-gone quarter), that's still a dangerous infiltration.

Because, of course, hardware is still Apple's principal business. Whether it's iPhones or Macs, that's where its money really comes from.

Certainly you wouldn't want the iPhone to become the principal platform for Apple's software development just yet. That's because it's got so many bugs and omissions. For instance, apps can't run in the background (very unlike Mac OS X, which liberated Apple users from the days when they could only do one thing, such as burn a CD, at a time). So you can't switch in midstream from doing something like reading a newsfeed item to seeing its associated website and come back. Which annoys at least one developer, who found his iPhone would freeze "to the point where you can't even scroll for a while, and then [it] stutters along as if in agony".

And he knows who's at fault: "Which I blame squarely on Apple's decision to avoid doing proper multitasking and take us all back to the pre-MultiFinder days. App developers have little choice but to take the mini-browser shortcut instead of saving their state, invoking Safari and reverting to the point you were at when returning to the app - because, after all, the user would have to exit Safari, find their app icon again and launch it, which would be a pain."

Similarly iPhone 2.0 still can't do copy-and-paste. You can't synchronise notes you've made on it to your computer. You can't store draft text messages. It still can't do MMS (that's picture messaging). And there have been plenty of complaints about shorter battery life - which may be due to people not knowing how to turn off the battery-chewing GPS, or might just be some more of that, um, to-do list stuff. Then, of course, there's the not-actually "push" (more like shove) aspect to the (terribly-named) MobileMe service, which Apple has told its sales force not to describe as "Exchange for the rest of us" because it doesn't actually push changes to the data such as emails and calendars out to connected devices; you have to shove it around by choosing to synchronise.

That's some to-do list.

Possibly the iPhone team do feel that they're now heading for the exit - marked "10 million iPhones sold" - while holding their beautiful, GPS-enabled princess under their arm. But the dragon isn't going away, and the product's success is only making the fire that some are ready to breathe on it hotter. Eventually, Apple, you have to kill the dragon - or at least find some way to bind it up so that it's not going to bother you any more. On your to-do list? Better find a way to get it off it.

The BBC has hired an expert on virtual worlds as part of its efforts to bring its TV and internet output closer together.

Roo Reynolds, who is currently a metaverse evangelist at IBM, will join the corporation as portfolio executive for social media, with a role across BBC Vision.

His role will include coordinating the BBC's social networking strategy and overseeing cross-platform projects - such as BBC3's much-vaunted revamp.

30-year-old Reynolds, who has been working at IBM's research laboratories in Hursley Park, Hampshire, for much of the past 10 years, has been employed in a number of different technical and research roles across the company.

Most recently he has specialised in the company's use of virtual worlds, and in particular has championed IBM's use of Second Life.

"I've worked with some great people and on some great projects, and it's good to be leaving on a high," said Reynolds in an announcement on his blog. "I don't regret anything about my time at IBM, and I'm only going because it's time for me to have even more fun elsewhere."

The announcement comes on the same day that the corporation confirmed that Erik Huggers, a former Microsoft executive, would be taking over as the head of the BBC's overall digital efforts.

Huggers will assume the title of director of future media and technology - one of the top jobs at the BBC - when current incumbent Ashley Highfield leaves on August 1.

Erik Huggers has been confirmed by the BBC as its new director of future media and technology, replacing Ashley Highfield.

Huggers, who MediaGuardian.co.uk revealed would get the job on Tuesday, will step into the new role on August 1.

Currently the group controller of FM&T, Huggers has been groomed for the new role since joining the corporation from Microsoft last year.

As director for the department, he takes responsibility for all the corporation's output across the web, mobile, interactive TV and new platforms as well as strategy and management for enterprise and broadcast technologies. He controls an annual budget of around £400m.

Huggers will also be responsible for the performance and development of iPlayer, the BBC's popular broadband TV catch-up service.

"He has shown tremendous commitment championing the iPlayer amongst many other projects. I look forward to him bringing his drive and determination to this new role, helping ensure the BBC is fit for the digital future," the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, said.

Huggers said he would help to ensure the corporation "responds to audience demands in providing exciting and innovative new ways of delivering the BBC's content across a range of media".

A Dutch national, Huggers was at Microsoft for nine years in various business roles before joining the BBC. He also spent just over a year in a business development role at the TV production firm Endemol.

Huggers' ascension to replace Highfield as FM&T director was seen by many staff as inevitable and he was give the role ahead of several long-serving BBC executives.

Following recent strong criticism by the BBC Trust over "insufficiently strong" management in the FM&T division, the BBC is also understood to be recruiting a head of editorial strategy to work alongside Huggers.

Highfield left the corporation at the end of last month to become chief executive of Project Kangaroo, the joint-venture web TV service being developed by BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4.

The Kangaroo project is currently being scrutinised by the Competition Commission.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

What's your favourite piece of technology?
Well, the first thought I had was maybe, like, the wheel? If you think about it, we use the wheel all the time, so I use that more than any other piece of technology. But probably functionally, I use the Wacom Cintiq tablet, which is an input device for Macintosh or PC, for Photoshop. [As an animator] I do a lot of drawings in the computer, and I can input them directly.

How has it improved your life?
Well, it gets the drawings into the computer faster, and that is huge. As far as how the wheel has improved my life, it gets me to a lot of places a lot faster than the alternative.

What additional features would you add if you could?
I think, actually, the additional features and the things that it needs [it] already has. I have an older version of the Cintiq, [but] the new one is fabulous. As far as the wheel goes, I would definitely have spikes - just in case you were nearby other cars that were dangerous.

When was the last time you used the Cintiq, and what for?
Probably about a week ago, and it was to do some storyboards for a future project. The last time I used the wheel? Yesterday - I was in a taxi.

Do you think the Cintiq will be obsolete in 10 years' time?
Well, the one I have will be obsolete, but no, I think that it's only going to get better. And certainly, the wheel's going to be around for a while.

What one tip would you give to non-Cintiq users?
I would get one, if you draw at all. It takes a long time to get used to the input device of it, and drawing on the piece of plastic. But once you get over that hump, it's really a terrific piece of work.

Do you consider yourself to be a Luddite or a nerd?
I'm kind of a "nerdite" in the sense that I have cutting-edge technology, but it's always a little bit old. I have the same Nokia phone I've had for years. It doesn't do anything except for make phone calls. So I'll get maybe an iPhone two years from now or something. I'm always right behind the times, but I'm not unwilling to try new technology.

What's the most expensive piece of technology you've ever owned?
It would have to be my car - the Volvo 850 T5 from 1997, which is the best automobile that Volvo ever made. It has a computer, so I think it still counts as technology - the computer tells you what the temperature is outside and what kind of crappy gas mileage you're getting.

Mac or PC?
Mac. As an artist, there's really no debate. I think the Mac has always produced a superior-looking product and I'm happy that the operating system now matches.

What song is at the top of your iPod's top 25 most played?
Probably Roscoe by Midlake. Or Now by Mates of State.

Will robots rule the world?
I don't know. I think this is a bigger issue in the UK. Apparently, the Dalek Cult of Skaro tried to take over one time by bringing the Genesis Arc and creating a whole host of new Daleks to take over all of London. But then I think that they reversed the Time Lords' Genesis Arc so that it sucked them all back in. And then there was that Cyberman thing. But I think a bigger thing to worry about is dragons.

What piece of technology would you most like to own?
I think a new CD player for my Volvo. They're kind of expensive, and mine broke, and I feel kind of stupid buying a new CD player on eBay for it. But it says "don't steal me" - it's gigantic, and it fits right in there, and there really is no other use for it.

WALL-E is released in UK cinemas today to rave reviews. The Guardian's Xan Brooks likes it too. Sort of.

Out of every £1 spent by British shoppers 17p is now going to online retailers, as consumers switch away from traditional shops in favour of picking and paying at their home computer.

A new survey shows £26.5bn was spent on the internet in the first six months of this year - up 38% on 2007. The online total is roughly equivalent to half the UK's supermarket spending.

The IMRG-Capgemini online sales index suggests online retail is proving far more resilient to the economic downturn than the high street, where cash-strapped consumers are hitting the shops less often, staying local rather than venturing to out-of-town malls, and trading down to cheaper goods.

Figures from several leading retailers underline that trend. While John Lewis's department stores have been hit by the downturn its online operation has continued to grow rapidly. Online fashion store Asos has produced impressive sales figures, and Ocado, which delivers Waitrose groceries, is seeing sales up 25% on a year ago.

Yesterday Mothercare highlighted a 28% jump in internet sales as one of the big drivers behind its 21% increase in group sales in the 15 weeks to July 11.

The survey suggests online retailers at the bottom and top of the market are performing best. Visits to the Primark and Harrods websites, for instance, are up 12% and 14% respectively on a year ago, while visits to midmarket sites are down 6%.

Online shopping is not immune from the credit crunch - a normal June dip in sales was more pronounced this year and sales of electrical goods are up only 20% this year compared with the 63% growth seen in the same period in 2007.

But the index predicts online growth will remain strong this year as a result of tight household budgets, the cost of petrol and "a general desire to shift to more sustainable shopping patterns". According to IMRG 56% of people think buying online is more environmentally friendly than high street shopping.

Hundreds of websites across Europe offering "free" or "cheap" mobile phone services such as ringtones and wallpaper are conning young people into taking out expensive contracts, the European commission warned yesterday.

The websites, including 39 in Britain, face enforcement action, including substantial fines and closure, after being suspected of breaching EU consumer rules, the EC said.

"Far too many people are falling victim to costly surprises from mysterious charges, fees and ringtone subscriptions they learn about for the first time when they see their mobile bill," said Meglena Kuneva, EU consumer commissioner.

She was giving the results of a unique EU-wide "sweep" last month by national regulators of 558 websites in the 27-nation bloc and Norway and Iceland.

Around 80% or 446 - half of which target young people with devices such as cartoon or TV characters - are to be further investigated. In the UK, 39 out of 43 sites covered by the sweep are suspected of giving misleading information.

Kuneva's warning of EU-wide enforcement action to track down each of the suspected traders comes just days after the EU telecoms commissioner, Viviane Reding, proposed wide-ranging cuts in the cost of sending mobile text messages when travelling within Europe.

Their actions, plus measures to make it easier for customers to switch bank accounts and enjoy lower charges, are part of an EC drive to make the EU more popular as a consumer champion when it has fallen out of favour with its 500m citizens.

Ringtones make up 29% of the European "mobile content" market and, growing at 10% a year, saw sales rise to €691m (£548m) in 2007. More than 495m mobile phones are owned by Europeans.

PhonepayPlus, the UK regulator, said the UK market for mobile content was worth £460m and complaints rose to 4,500 in the first three months of this year.

Its chief executive, George Kidd, told the BBC: "There is a clear lack of trust among many consumers about mobile premium services and this is small wonder when you consider the kind of harm that is being done to them by some providers."

The EU sweep found almost half the websites offered missing or hidden information about the offer's price, with the customer only finding out via their bill. More than 70% lacked basic information on how to contact the trader and more than 60% had misleading information, including widespread use of the word "free". Kuneva cited the case of a consumer's nine-year-old daughter who ordered a "free" ringtone but found this led to expensive membership. The operator paid back €125 in unwanted messages but has retained €273.

A daily ritual: get in the car, plug your destination's address into the satnav and follow the directions delivered in that (slightly grating) automated voice. And the entire cheap and easy process is a hymn to the benefits of free data, because the satnav systems work out where drivers are, using American satellites for free. It is one example Guardian journalists use in their battle to have a similar level of access to official British information. Begun just over two years ago, the Free Our Data campaign is based on a simple argument: taxpayers pay large amounts for the data collected on them - why should they pay extra to see it? Instead, they argue, the government should relinquish copyright on essential national data and let anyone access it for free. That would spur innovation and creativity; not just the campaigners' argument, but that made by independent advisers to the Treasury. Businesses and others could use the data to map cheaply where crimes happen, or how much traffic is on the roads. Enthusiasts for cliff-climbing could share tidal forecasts. Those against argue that the Ordnance Survey's work is not entirely paid for by taxpayers, or warn that it could lead to the privatisation of all data collection. These are serious points, and they should be taken into account. But the momentum is in favour of freeing up data; Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson boasts that he wakes up and immediately thinks "How can I free another dataset?" One hopes that is not literally true, but the sentiment is appreciated.

Shortly before meeting Martha Lane Fox, her publicity people call to postpone the photographer. Lane Fox, who walks with a black polished stick, had fallen over and was sporting a scab on her nose, something that has happened all too often since a horrific car accident in Morocco four years ago.

Lane Fox, a co-founder of Lastminute.com and one of the best-known faces of the internet boom in the late 1990s, has endured 23 operations since the crash, which happened after she had quit the online travel firm and finally found the time to do some exploring herself. Her forearm is criss-crossed with faint scars that could be mistaken for creases. "My friends all tease me, because I have now got a new epithet of brave Martha or tragic Martha, having gone through dotcom Martha. I can't stand it."

Lane Fox works from a small office in fashionable Fitzrovia in London's West End, next door to a new contemporary art gallery. She is gradually building her interests back up, both in business and in a handful of charitable projects.

She is the chair of Lucky Voice, a Tokyo-inspired karaoke club that allows groups of friends to hire small rooms,