I received an e-mail from a virtual friend this morning. I know he’s a virtual friend because it was a virtual e-mail.

He has been looking for a job and has just landed one which is good news. And he is very happy about it, which is even better news.

In the e-mail he sent me, he included a link to the new employer. I followed the link and found the web site. It’s a nice site, but I didn’t understand much because it is all technical stuff. But I did notice at the bottom of the page that they are offering free wallpaper.

Our spare bedroom needs redecorating soon, so an offer of free wallpaper was too good to miss. I followed the instructions on the web site and everything seemed to work. There was nowhere where they asked how many rolls I wanted, but in this strange hi-tech world, maybe they knew from some database somewhere.

But the wallpaper never arrived. All that happened is that that lovely photograph of a French sunset that I used to have on my computer screen has gone, and it has been replaced by a calendar for April 2004. Very weird.

As I said, this is a modern technical company, so they wouldn’t be silly enough to give away free out of date calendars, so it must be April 2004 there. I knew there was a time difference between here and America, but I didn’t think it was that much. Maybe I should write to my virtual friend and let him know what is in store for him for the next three years and two months?

In the meantime, I have to go looking for my French sunset.