Only in Malta

The last time my computer spent a week at the repair shop I am told I reacted like I had been deprived of oxygen. "You went crazy", my friend Colin told me last weekend, "I remember, you were totally freaking out". Colin does not have a computer at home and does not feel the need for one. To me, he is in denial. To him, I am an incurable geek.

The first thing I do when I wake up is hit the power button on my notebook and the last thing I do before I go to bed is shut down. I make no apologies for it. And although I remember manual typewriters and lending libraries, I find it hard to remember how I used to write before the advent of the internet.

To anyone who knows the least thing about the internet and the World Wide Web, the benefits to a hooked-up writer and researcher are probably obvious and usually include the word Google. Instead of trudging to the library to look up silly details like "when was the internet invented?", so I can be sure of the date when I make claims like "the single most important invention of the second half of the 20th century", I google for the information over the internet. (Note: The verb "to search" was dealt a fatal blow in about 1998 when Google was set up and by 2018 the verb "to google" will have replaced the verb "to search" in all dictionaries except the most subversive ones.)

But to me, the best thing about the internet is how it has freed my life of chores. I shop for everything over the internet. Take groceries. The first time was a little time consuming, I grant you, but since I am a creature of habit, all I have to do these days is call up my previous shop and add it to the shopping basket. Grocery shopping in five minutes, and delivered right to my door, what's not to like?

I shop for books over the internet... and save myself a lot of money. Here I am a poor student (donations c/o The Editor are accepted with relish) barely making ends meet but who just has to buy books to feel alive. The compromise: buy used books. I took delivery of five textbooks this morning in exchange for the princely sum of £30 (Lm20). That was five text books.

On Amazon.co.uk, new copies were marked an average £10-20 per book. But with my whiz googling skills aided by more sophisticated product-specific web crawlers like Bookfinder.com, I unearthed used copies of all the books I wanted and even left messages for booksellers to keep an eye out for an out-of-print book I am looking for. The world is my market.

This morning when I woke up, I downloaded a recording of the main stories in The Times (of London) and had the paper read out to me on my notebook while I sipped my orange juice and tried to pretend I was still in bed. Tonight, before I go to bed, I will listen to The Guardian Newsdesk, another podcast, which not only gives me the main stories in The Guardian but obligingly also scours the other papers for the main stories of the day. Brushing my teeth has never been more pleasurable.

News fix aside, I read my e-mail and spent two hours getting my day organised. I paid my rent and my phone bill, checked that my next DVD rentals were on their way, transferred some money between bank accounts, and wrote back to a friend currently teaching English at a refugee camp in Nablus, Palestine. All online. At about 10 a.m. I heard the postman rattling the letterbox and picked up my snail mail. The taxman has managed to track me down. This time last year I had just moved from Glasgow to London in search of work and in October I moved again, to Brighton to take up my current post. I had organised all my change of address notifications online but completely forgot the Maltese taxman since he only gets in touch once a year.

I opened the envelope to find a blank return and a note that it could be filed online. I grinned. For once, my tax return would be on time. I spent the rest of the day writing, occasionally stopping to chat to a friend, online. I stopped for lunch and, since the contents of my fridge were not very inspiring, I went to bbc.co.uk/food/recipes and searched for a quick recipe based on the ingredients I had available.

In the afternoon I took a short nap and let myself drift off to the sound of Martin Jarvis reading one of the Just William books by Richmal Crompton which I had just downloaded from the iTunes shop. When I woke up, I decided to fill in my tax return. "Individual taxpayers can submit their personal income tax return online.

Taxpayers need the eID to access this service." A piece of cake. I logged on to register and obtain my eID. A few frustrated clicks later, I read that an eID could only be obtained from one of a list of designated local councils in person.

The irony seems to have completely escaped the government minion who wrote, of the advantages of filing an online return: "First it will save you time, as you will no longer need to queue at the department to file your return and pay the self assessment..." Nothing about obtaining an eID online and saving time queuing at a local council then.

Only in Malta?

Miss Spiteri is a journalist and a researcher in media and identity based at the University of Sussex.

S.Spiteri@sussex.ac.uk