The title Human Spider might sound a bit like something from a Victorian circus, but it could also be an accurate description of a certain kind of person today.
It's how I sometimes feel, anyway – and I reckon there must be many modern country-dwellers whose lives, in some ways, resemble the kind of creature that sits in the middle of a web pulling strings that have consequence and effect hundreds of miles away.
On the desk in front of me I have a computer and a telephone and for the past hour (as is the case most mornings) I have been using both to communicate with people located a long way away from my quiet, peaceful, un-busy, Exmoor valley.
This is something I do daily before getting on with the real job which is to write stuff – and it goes without saying that loads of people who work at desks must have to wade through the same sort of thing.
First there was a bloke emailing from the Philippines – an old school friend whose fascinating story you'll see in the paper soon. I picked up on what he was doing out there by following him on Twitter – which, believe it or not, is how I get a few tales of interest that eventually see the light of day in the pages of this newspaper.
So that was my old mate being a kind of human spider, sitting in his hotel room in Manila tweeting stuff about his interesting work on a smartphone – a simple act which had consequences thousands of miles away
Then my daughter telephoned while walking to university to complain that she's getting into debt to the tune of £8,500 a year in return for a paltry handful of lectures and regular dysfunctional tiffs with her lecturers. She wanted to know my thoughts on the matter – which happen to be unprintable in a family newspaper.
Next a bloke phoned to ask if I'd received a book which he's sending me – and also to tell me that he had sent a letter explaining the said tome – and would I like to hear all about it there and then while he was on the blower… Actually, it has arrived and it is an impressive book which I will be writing about – but what impressed me most was how he got my private office telephone number which is something I keep as secret as the prime minister's pin-code for firing our nuclear arsenal.
Assorted emails that arrived overnight included the usual plethora of pleas and offers from public relations people – including one that mentioned the glories of something or other they were doing at Easter. Missives like that are one reason why I need to take blood pressure pills.
To hell with Easter! We haven't even begun to taste, swallow and digest the fact that Christmas is looming on the horizon yet…
But for every ten emails that are greeted with a hit of the delete button, there's one that grabs my interest. Such as the one this morning which asked if I'd like to try the latest pair of lightweight walking boots? Yes, I would, thank you very much.
And what about the poor elderly lady I only vaguely know who's emailed from deepest darkest Africa to say all her money has been stolen and she's living in penury in a leper colony? She asks for money which should be sent immediately and I am tempted to bung several hundred quid her way by PayPal – except I know this particular woman is semi-disabled and never, ever, leaves this parish.
Which causes me to muse – amid the mayhem of my morning – that there must be some people who actually fall for this kind of thing, otherwise the dodgy little toe-rags who try these scams wouldn't bother. But who these innocents are – and what planet they are plugged into – I have no idea.
Now here's another email from a PR person, alluringly entitled: "Golden Santa Gorilla Lights Up East London's Most Talked About Christmas Windows".
Why, oh why, would they think a grumpy old journalist in the Westcountry would be in the least bit interested in that? I feel like pressing the reply button and telling her where she can shove her Golden Santa Gorilla, but don't because I've already replied to 43 other emails in the last hour and my typing fingers are getting cramp before I even start using them to make a living.
Which reminds me, I must think of a subject to write about in this column…
