I’ve got a group of undergraduates working towards their dissertations and had to re-arrange a couple of tutorials. I did this very quickly - it was a busy day. So my message probably ran something like ‘Change meeting to Wednesday 2.30pm’, followed by my automated signature ‘open a window on myvedana.blogspot.com’.

Of course the poor unsuspecting reader wasn’t to know that this was an automated signature and assumed that her kindly tutor was providing a helpful link. Somehow, in clicking the link she was redirected to a news site discussing whether or not some supermodel had had cosmetic surgery!

‘What’s this myvedana.blogspot.com for?’
she asked when we met.
‘Oh, it’s my blog….do you know…’
I began.
‘So what’s breast enhancement got to do with techno-literacy practice?’
she quickly countered. I was lost.
‘A blog’s a sort of an online journal, and I do write some pretty wierd stuff.’
I went on. She nodded as if to humour me.
‘But I certainly don’t write about breasts.’
I noted, emphatically. She smiled sweetly and then said
‘I read the page for quite a long time, but couldn’t find anything that was relevant.’
I must have looked embarrassed.
‘It wasn’t smutty or anything’ she quickly added.
‘Oh.’ I said rather weakly.
‘I’m sorry for any misunderstanding.’

Justin Hall all over again. And for an awkward moment I imagined my vast and still largely hypothetical audience following the same bad link and wondering.