Friday

Review: Instant messenger

This is seminal stuff. Seminal in the sense that it’s allowed new and exciting forms of office timewasting and aimless chat, and seminal in that sometimes when I’m online with the Elephant Man he… well.

Probably as a consequence of my torrid non-relationship with the Elephant Man, who got me hooked in the first place, the mechanics of MSN Messenger have, for me, a curious sexual charge. Those pop-up windows telling you X has signed in… The little head-and-shoulders icons… The handwriting tool on Messenger Beta… There are probably support groups for this kind of nauseatingly zeitgeisty sexual perversion.

Instant messenger: Beautiful and dangerous, like drinking neat meths. Sign in, turn on, drop out. 9 out of 10