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Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

Last week, we went up to visit my 'de facto' in-laws. Although they've had a computer for a while, they've never had broadband so the wonders of the web were practically a mystery to them.

After much fannying around with Belkin USB adaptors, we managed to get the broadband connection working and, lo and behold, the internet was there.

We set up email accounts for them both and typed out some basic instructions for using it and other simple web behaviour.

We also downloaded Skype and set up an account and sorted out a basic webcam.

A week on and it has already been revolutionary, according to my girlfriend's mum. Not only is she able to video call every day for 10-15 minutes and see our daughter, but our little girl gets a kick out of seeing her grandparents and their assorted animals.

On top of that, they've discovered the wonders of things like Amazon - the ability to buy obscure books at half the price and get them delivered for free, rather than trawl round half-a-dozen bookshops in the faint hope that they'll be there.

OK, so they're not about to code and launch their own website, but that's not what digital inclusion is all about. It's about opening up basic access to the internet and allowing everyone to enjoy the benefits.

Seeing someone discover this for the first time is a lot of fun!

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

Even in death, Michael Jackson continues to cast a spell over his fans and beyond. The premiere of Is This It?, footage of his rehearsals for his O2 Tour, hits cinemas worldwide tonight.

Handily, his first (and you'll note the use of the word first) posthumous single is also called Is This It, even though it was co-written with Paul Anka back in 1983.

Some may think that this will be the last we'll hear of Michael Jackson for a while. The circumstances surrounding his death seem to have been cleared up and now this footage is about to be shown finally.

And yet, we all know that music legends never really go away, do they? Jimi Hendrix recordings were unearthed long after he shuffled of this mortal coil, MTV Unplugged and the single You Know You're Right were released after Kurt Cobain's death and even Nick Drake's early unheard recordings have been turned into something 'new'.

Jackson will be no different. There will always be new fans to attract. My six-year-old daughter had never really heard of Michael Jackson before his death. While watching Up in the cinema at the weekend, the trailer for Is This It? came on and she turned to me and said, 'That's Michael Jackson. It's sad that he died,' before proceeding to sing along to all the songs playing in the background.

I'm not suggesting people should forget him, but let's face it, we can all be pretty certain that in a year or two or 10, some more 'new' recordings will be 'mysteriously' discovered.

The Jackson bandwagon will roll on long after his death, because he is still a money-making machine and probably still has a line of creditors longer than your arm, queuing up to claw back some of the money still owed to them. For that reason, and that reason alone, Michael Jackson will never be allowed to die.

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

I remember well when The Proclaimers burst onto the scene in the mid-1980s. Even though they looked as if they should be mocked with their geeky specs and extraordinarily strong accents, there was something undeniably compelling about their music.

Most people remember '(I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles' and 'Letter From America', which was, indeed, their breakout hit and the one that firmly entrenched them into the hearts of most British music-lovers.

However, I was always more taken with one of their follow-up tracks, Sunshine On Leith. Far more poignant and elegiac, it seemed to sum up the Proclaimers for me far better.

The only recording I ever had of it was a dodgy home-taping from a R1 Simon Mayo show (I know because his voice comes in over the start of the song), so I finally downloaded it recently and can't stop listening to it. If you've never heard it before, or even haven't for a long time, give it a listen. Beautiful.

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

After the first week of this year's X Factor live finals, I blogged about the fact that Louis Walsh had obviously had eye surgery.

At the time, I didn't have access to footage of new Louis, so it was all speculation. Now he's back in the chair, I've taken the liberty of doing a dodgy comparison (left), so you can judge for yourself.

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

In spite of the furore over Nick Griffin's appearance on last night's Question Time and the running commentary provided by almost everyone I know during the show's broadcast, it's been a quiet week on Twitter.

Quiet, that is, when you compare it to last week. There has been acres of web space devoted to the double whammy of Twitter-power in the previous 7 days.

First, there was the now infamous Twitter campaign to embarrass lawyers Carter Ruck and their client Trafigura to lift the quite bewildering gag order on reporting in the House Of Commons.

Being part of the constant Twitterthon on Tuesday felt rather special. It was like going on a student demo without leaving the comfort of your own living room. Populace action using the web in a way that had previously been unimaginable.

And the Twitter community had only just recovered, when the second huge 'scandal' of the week erupted. Namely, the now equally infamous Daily Mail article, penned by Jan Moir about the 'strange, lonely and troubling death' of Stephen Gately.

My partner read it very early on Friday morning and said, rather presciently, 'That's going to cause a bit of a stink'. Too right - a stench that Jan Moir herself and the Daily Mail could never have imagined.

In an even greater show of strength than the earlier Trafigura moment, the Twitterverse went into meltdown. The level of astonishment at the column's content was quite something to behold.

When a friend of mine tweeted that Moir had quite rightly breached the PCC code and forwarded the message to Derren Brown, the die was cast. His retweet flooded Twitter and the PCC was deluged with complaints - in itself a delicious irony given the relentless Daily Mail campaign against Ross and Brand last year - a number that currently stands at around 25,000.

Every development was noted. When the article headline changed and the ads were removed, tweets went round everywhere. When Charlie Brooker published his comment on the whole sorry saga, a link to his article achieved almost equal saturation.

But all good things come to an end. At lunch the other day with some friends, we noted how quiet it had been on Twitter this week, in comparison to the fire and brimstone of the previous seven days.

And we all agreed that actually a quiet week was actually really important. A sense of order and decorum has returned. Changing the world, or at least a couple of small parts of it, takes energy and emotion that cannot be continuously maintained.

Twitter needs time to gather itself before the next assault on freedom of speech and the erosion of liberal values. Let us get our breath back!

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

As the Kindle hits the UK, there's divided opinion on whether or not, it's a good thing. David Hepworth wrote an elegant post on why he can't see the point of a Kindle and all the other e-readers.

Nicholson Baker has also written about his Kindle experience - not all of it positive.

But e-readers are here to stay, no matter how perfect a product the book is, for a number of reasons.

1) Digital is now. For the same reason that digital music has succeeded, there are a lot of people who just aren't fussed about having a physical product any more. For those of us who still buy CDs/vinyl/paperbacks, this is still a strange concept, but as the digital world progresses, ever more people will be less and less interested in having clutter around.
2) No need to buy crap paperbacks. As much as I love to read new, hot releases, I also like to keep my brain stress-free on occasion and veg out to the latest Lee Child or Kathy Reichs book. The thing is, I don't really feel the need to buy them physically - an e-reader will be perfect for a space-saving download, speed read and then I won't feel bad if I keep it, or discard it.
3) You don't need to tell everyone what you're reading. Some people have suggested that e-readers could do for the adult fiction industry what DVDs and the internet did for the sex video industry. Imagine the joy of being able to read whatever you want without the need to hide it in a different book jacket.

It's clear that the book is a pretty perfect product, but technology has a way of taking things to a new place and a new level. When the iPod arrived, there wasn't total agreement that it would create the music listening revolution that it did. I'm not suggesting that the Kindle will have quite the impact of Apple's invention, but it's definitely the next step on the way to a new chapter for books.

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

When you're looking for a job, this isn't exactly the kind of opportunity you really want to see offered!

Guess it could have been worse - might have been McDonald's looking for someone...

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

Watched the Saturday X Factor show tonight (a day late, admittedly) and it's obvious that Louis Walsh has had the eye surgery to remove his bags that had been talked about in the papers.

Apparently, Simon has been urging Louis to have it for a while, and Sharon Osbourne has obviously passed on the number of her own plastic surgeon.

If you didn't notice this week, make sure you look closely at Louis' eyes next week and you'll spot the difference!

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

How ironic that something someone else had done has highlighted why it's time for Bruce Forsyth to hang up his Strictly Come Dancing hat.

The furore over Anton Du Beke's use of the word 'paki' towards his dancing partner Laila Rouass had all but died down, when Bruce entered the fray earlier today.

The Daily Mail reported this morning that Bruce had said that Du Beke's comments were no worse than Americans calling us 'limeys' and he effectively criticised the culture of political correctness that exists in the UK.

But less than 12 hours later, Bruce seems to have backtracked and now says that 'Du Beke was wrong'.

Bruce Forsyth may have been a wonderful entertainer in his day and have delighted audiences, but it's clear that the BBC might have to wave goodbye to his multitude of talents after this faux pas.

Equally, the powers-that-be will be wondering what to do about Du Beke. There had been whispers that he was in line to succeed Brucie and his latest gig on Hole In The Wall seemed to endorse that fact, but this is likely to put a dent in that ambition.

Privately, the BBC is still backing Bu Beke, but the rumours that Terry Wogan is a candidate to take over Strictly next year will become much stronger after this latest furore.

Sadly, it seems that even the slightest of tongue-slips can dent the loftiest of ambitions and it's not always the older generations, such as Forsyth and Ron Atkinson, who are prone to gaffes.

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

The World's Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter, aka Twitterature, hit our doormat earlier this week.

A clever, yet bizarre little tome in which some of the most revered pieces of literature are cut up into 140-character chunks and spewed out at speed.

Thus, if you've never read, say Dante's Inferno, you 'may' be able to work out what the plot is through tweets like this...

'I'm being attacked by three theoretical beasts! I don't think I'm in Italy any more!'

Other greats retold include Beowulf, Romeo & Juliet, Crime and Punishment and Metamorphosis