The Guardian, May 1999
What was your introduction to computers?
A second-hand 48K Sinclair Spectrum in about 1984. Me and my brother saved
up for it from our pocket/paper-round money. My favourite games were Chuckie
Egg, Pac-Man and Pole Position. We would also spend laborious hours typing
in Basic programs from magazines. Difficult to imagine it now, but it took
eight minutes to load a game from cassette and my ultimate fantasy was to
get a 128K model.
Do you use an Apple Mac or a PC ... or something different?
When I became a full-time freelance journalist at 16, I could only afford an
Amstrad PCW8256 word processor - they didn't even have hard drives. After
that I fell in love with Macs. I had a Classic II (my baby) and now a PowerMac.
Much as I adore Macs, however, they've been left behind. Just bought a Psion
Series 5 and am getting a PC shortly.
Are computers important ... for you? For the world?
They've changed my life - my fantasy is to be a 'techno nomad' i.e. living
in a beach hut in Thailand but still do my job by email (right now I'm replying
from a net cafe in Sydney). As for the world, the net is going to have a
huge educational affect - for example in China ordinary people now have access
to uncensored media and in Thailand the net cafes are full of schoolchildren.
What do you use the machine for?
My work - editing anthologies of fiction. The latest, Fortune
Hotel for Penguin,
was almost entirely compiled by email/ICQ [instant messaging]. It's the way
I prefer to contact authors, negotiate, receive their submissions and edit
them.
Any particular favourite software?
Anything you'd like but can't have yet- When I get a PC I'm going to be in
software heaven being a Mac-user is so limiting. Wish list: PC banking, netphone,
speech recognition, infra-red Psion link. Also the program that transforms
digital camera pics of you and your mates into wacky stickers - a big craze
in Japan.
Do you get into dialogues with strangers on the Net?
No, if I want to meet people I clubbing.
Are you a geek?
Definitely not
What do you see in the future for computers?
Public Internet terminals will become as common as telephone boxes. International
telephones will become obsolete, replaced by net calls at local rates. The
handheld computer market will boom with combined Psion/mobile-phone devices
leading the way.
Are you worried about the Y2K Millennium Bug?
No, I think it's exaggerated.
Presently working on?
I am currently curating a writing/music project with a guy in Moscow called
Kremlin Renegades working entirely by email and ICQ.