Number Fifteen: Use Microsoft Word to type your thesis

The computer age seemed like such a wonderful leap in evolution - we were promised time saving devices that would cut down on the amount of work we were faced with, to make our lives easier and less stressful. I'm old enough to remember typing up my homework on a typewriter, and even at A-level I literally cut and pasted drafts of essays together (yes, with scissors and a photocopier - I'm not really a luddite, I promise) before writing them out by hand on reams of ridiculously expensive display paper. So with the advent of new technology I stood marvelling at my friends' parents' electric typewriters, despite the constant need for Tipp-Ex if you'd made a mistake beyond the printed five line error margin. I took great pride in navigating an angular plastic "turtle" around a classroom to spell out my name, enjoying the sense of control that the computer gave me - you told the robot to do something, and it did it (albeit about 6 minutes later). But the glory days of black screen and green text, and programmes on tape that you had to play for half an hour to load the game (weeeeeeee ERRRRRRRR kerchun kerchun kerchun, dit dit dit EEEEEEEEEEEEEE) were numbered. And along came Windows (in my world at least, although I acknowledge that the Mac concept existed first elsewhere) with its colourful icons, folders that actually looked like folders and generally all-round friendly user interface.

Or should that be interfarce?

I cannot begin to imagine how many hours I have spent reformatting text that Microsoft Word has "helpfully" altered for me. Did I tell you to make that red? Why is it now a different font and size? And why - given that I just deleted this bit - did you just change something three paragraphs up?!

This is beginning to relate to Number Fourteen again. Pass me the typewriter and Tipp-Ex. Or maybe writing it out via the turtle would be quicker?!

I'm off to throw sticks at an automated loom....