Hello – Colossus 212

From Christine’s Hello in Colossus No.212

When television was invented, film producer Darryl Zanuck predicted that people would soon tire of staring at a plywood box every night.

In 1986, George Bush made the same prediction about the Internet.  Yet both facilities are here to stay, whether we like it or not.

In countless ways, the Internet has changed our lives in the short time it’s been around. More and more of life’s living is now conducted online.

Emails have become firmly entrenched. How easy it is to write a quick note to family or friends and get an instant answer back.

The Google search engine has become a well-used verb – if you need to know something you find out by googling it, usually ending up with Wikipedia.

Anything you want to buy or sell can be found on eBay, or one of the specialised sites like Amazon for books and DVDs.

Contacting long-lost friends is now possible with sites such as Friends Reunited.

Booking tickets for the cinema, theatre or concerts is so much easier online through sites such as Ticketmaster. In some cases, the only way to book in advance is online.

Travel arrangements can be made on local rail travel sites or airline sites. Hotels are easy to book on lastminute for example. Studying for a university degree, finding recipes…the list is endless.

By the way, I’m not getting a fee for plugging these sites – these are just some of the online facilities I’ve used myself recently.

The Internet has been available in Britain since at least 1993 and the man known as the Godfather of the Web, Sir Tim Berners Lee, was named in 2004 as the greatest living Briton. While working as a physicist in Switzerland, he turned an elite collection of military and academic computer systems into an international network.

The younger generation can’t imagine a world without emails, Internet and text messaging. For the older generation, it has been (and still is) a learning curve, a challenge and in some cases something to be feared.

My father didn’t take to it instantly. My brothers set up a computer for him and did all they could to encourage him to send emails. When he had run out of reasons not to, he mastered the new technology and now he can’t wait to log on and find out what’s happening in the world.

He’s only a youngster of course, at 86. Some of our online puzzlers are well over 90 and have taken to the Internet like a mouse to cheddar.

Readers occasionally berate me for using clues that can only be found online and I must reiterate that this is definitely NOT the case.
Most answers to our crosswords can be found in dictionaries or encyclopedias. It’s just that you can probably find them more quickly by using a search engine.

This is the way the world is going and we have developed our own websites for puzzlers. Write and tell me your online experiences –  I’d love to hear from you.

Happy Puzzling!