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Whilst I'm not a luddite, I've always resisted the temptation to embrace the internet as anything more than a convenience. It is true that I adopted an internet based job searching procedure back in the days when the internet was not quite so all pervasive and employers recruited by all sorts of traditional means. It's also notable that the Job Centre became very antipathic to my methods once the internet caught up with them and officialdom dictated what was or was not acceptable. They would argue I failed to get a job. I would argue I was getting attention from companies that otherwise would have remained exclusive. For a long time I began using the internet at my local library or those cheap and cheerful internet cafes that sprung up around the town. The increasing use of smartphones rendered the internet cafe commercially obsolete and the arrival of Covid meant libraries were shut, so I took the plunge and got connected. Well whaddaya know, now I need my internet connection as badly as everyone else. My connection was cut off for 24 hours last night. Not sure why, my provider quoted technical problems, and a van was parked outside my home in the early hours of this morning whilst technical wizardry took place. Lo and behold I got out of bed this morning to discover my internet is alive and well. Hello World. Brave New World Thee are people in my area who think I'm a hermit. It is true I don't feel the need to socialise as much as I did when I was young (I begin drawing a pension shortly) but I'm not quite as agrophobic as they think, I did after all go to the pub last week. No really, I did. Came to no harm whatsoever. But interconnectivity has made the world strangely accessible. I have guitar lessons from professional players in America, Canada, New Zealand. I discuss history with people from just about everywhere. I even had an hour long conversation with an American Hollywood film producer a few weeks ago. None of this would have been possible a decade ago. But of course it isn't all wonderful. Criminals and conspiracy theorists abound. It's great to be able to interact globally, not so great when you have to be so wary. Hang on... Who are you? Brave New World Of The Week Now we come to events in Afghanistan. The Taliban have waited for the west to give up and go and the policy worked, though apparently they're a little miffed that withdrawing US forces disabled much of the military hardware they left behind. It was going to be difficult enough for them to find anyone who can operate modern military aircraft anyway without showing off to the world how much scrap metal they now own. But the worlds media want scapegoats. It makes for good entertaining copy and so the pressure on selected politicians gets intense, sometimes excessively zealous. But how do you fight a faction that can melt into the civilian population whenever you mount an operation against them? Guns? Bombs? Missiles? No, it comes down to the internet. Find out who your target is, where they're going to be, and deploy a remote controlled drone to make warfare nice and personal. I suppose that sounds a bit critical but that's how war is developing now. The Russians are currently upgrading their conventional armed forces with some alarming new weapons. A continuation of older style policies? Certainly. Dictators love powerful weapons with which to throw their weight about. But both Russia and China are known to use the internet as a means of attacking the West. So was the loss of internet access yesterday a bold offensive by rival empires to suppress my campaign to enjoy global interaction? Funnily enough, I'll probably never know.

It's the bad old days all over again. Back when I was a youngster the world was biting its nails as Russia and America stared nose to nose with a nuclear arsenal to smack each other with the moment one or the other said something about their mother. Back then it was common practice for the Russians to send reconnaisance aircraft into our airspce here in Britain to see if we were still paying attention, which of course we did, sending jets to intercept the intruders and wave them off while they gave us cheery waves back. It looks as if the same sort of thing is starting again. Putin wants his military back from the brink, reversing the decay caused by the decline of communism and the new economic market. So far they've been flying in international airspace which is allowed, and I see one report that a nuclear warefare exercise has 'probably' taken place in the Atlantic. Oh good. More From The Old College Site Recently I popped into my local chinese takeaway. The lady there is a nonsense 'can't stop talking' type, which would be irritating if it wasn't for her hilarious accent. Worth the visit just to have a conversation, but trust me on this, you'd better be quick with replies. Oh hi "You wan food?" Umm... Let's see... "You wan food? Look at menu." Oh right. Well... "You wan meal for two?" Erm, yeah... "Rice or noodles?" Noodles. "Wait I answer phone... You wan food?... You wan food? Look at menu.... You wan meal for two?.... What you wan with noodles?.... Thirty minutes.... Bye. Okay, now what you wan with noodles?" And so on, until you've finished ordering, she's finished bossing customers about over the telephone, and the cook has retreated back into the kitchen again bruised and beaten. Then she gets quite chatty. "You wan conversation?" Erm... As it happens we did have an interesting chat because that was the same day the supermarket opened at the Old College site. Neither of us had ever shopped in a Morrisons before so we were both curious. It was one of those conversdations where you agree completely with the other non-stop for fifteen minutes. "Here is meal. You go home now." Erm... So what is our new supermarket like? Funnily enough, it felt and looked exactly like every other supermarket in town. There was a strange sense of deja vu as I wandered past the fresh fruit shelves near the entrance, watching all the future cancer patients busy choosing which government warning pack to buy at the cigarette stall, and spied the rows of neatly ordered shelves stuffed full of low low prices and guarantees of money back if you can get it cheaper anywhere else. Actually the prices aren't bad. I've found stuff I can buy cheaper than the usual haunts I'm used to, so I'm happy, only now I have to visit four supermarkets an week instead of three. A bit like complying with my Jobseekers Agreement, only you spend money instead of begging for it. Jobsearch of the Week For some reason the Job Centre have put me on the Families Support Programme. Why, I cannot say, seeing as I don't have a family, but at least the Support Centre is full of attractive young lady assistants so my jobsearching efforts have mysteriously gotten more enthusiastic. Must dash. I have a review session with my advisor and don't want to be late. I am so shallow.

Archeologists have found a Roman coin during excavations in the historic center of the northern city of Veliky Novgorod, an archeologist said on Monday. The copper coin, which belongs to a type known as "follis," is believed to date to the early 4th century A. D., Oleg Oleinikov of the Moscow-based Archeology Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Interfax. Read more here.