I recently mentioned getting a new iMac, what I didn't say was that in the process of transferring files I lost my entire email folder, about 6 years of emails, I subscribe to the 'never throw anything away, it might come in handy one day' school.
A few weeks ago my lifelong 85 year old best friend in Norfolk died of a heart attack, we'd had an almost daily email conversation for 5-6 years so when he died my first thought was to review his writing over the years and to create a 'book' for family and friends; the day he was cremated my computer crashed. In an effort to find any of his emails on my computer I asked his wife to send me one at random from his computer so I'd have something to search for, this is what she sent me, it's one of mine to him, the content makes it self explanatory.
"Bill: Well, praise indeed, it's merited I think, what started as nothing much more than a bunch of pop music oriented people blathering on about what lots consider nonsense has flowered into something much more significant, what intrigues me and holds my interest is the 'family' component; it's an international family where we all know each other fairly intimately except that nobody knows anyone's name! Except in 2-3 cases, mine included. We're definitely on a first name basis if only we knew what they were, it's an amazing offshoot of the www, it's a means whereby a lot of like minded people can meet on a regular basis and talk about things of communal interest.
The overspill blog is even more interesting, that's the hardcore, there we interact much more personally and where we share music and ideas, it's quite amazing how it's flourished so rapidly since it's inception without any apparent effort on anyone's part, it just growed! It's anarchy in action. And now the book business; everyone's excited, there's a publication party planned for April, when I told Gina about it she said 'Surely you're not going?' to which I said 'I must, my readers expect it of me', We'll see, it would be a good excuse to visit and maybe do a dogleg to Spain to see Tess.
On the subject of www, I've just got from the library 'Weaving the Web' by Tim Berners-Lee, he's the bloke who single handedly designed and built the www, it's the story of how he did it. There's an item on the cover: 'If computer networking were a traditional science, Berners-lee would have received a Nobel prize, as it is he hasn't made a penny from it.'"
This is Bill wrapping some snowdrops he'd just dug from his garden for me, in my last email to him I told him that they were in full bloom, he was a lifetime member of the Royal Horticultural Society and an occasional visitor to the Spill whenever I prompted him.
