Before I begin, I’d like it, ahem, struck from the record that when Mr Davey Winder posted about the PS3 a few months ago, I may, er, have got quite vociferous in the talkbacks over my thoughts of the console.

The long and short of it: I’ve got one.

Yet this past weekend, I’ve not really played many games on it. That’s primarily because there’s no outstanding game out for the machine yet, although I’ve enjoyed Resistance (Virtua Tennis 3 doesn’t qualify because I’ve been hammering that on my 360 for the past few months). It’s also because there’s some quite un-Sony like about it. Sure, the pricing, the arrogance of the launch, the stripping down of the European model etc has Sony written all over it, but I’m intrigued by the surprising codec support, the inclusion of a Folding client, and that oh-so-tempting option in the menu to install another OS. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do next.

It’s stil a ridiculous amount of money they’re asking though, that only justifies itself if you have a compelling need right now for a Blu-ray player. But credit where credit’s due: the end result, bastardised though it is to an extent, is an intriguing - and quiet - box of tricks, that if Sony really follow through and let us tamper with to the extent of a fresh OS, could prove to be a bit of an Aladdin’s cave in months to come.

If I was spending £400 now, though, the Xbox 360/Wii combination is still, undoubtedly, the better deal.

Is anything, at all, about the Internet anonymous? It’s a fair question, and one without an easy answer, particularly in light of Google’s confirmation that they’ll be culling identifying-details out of their search logs once they’ve been held for the best part of two years.

Someone, somewhere, must have had the thought that this might be a good news story for the ‘friendly’ computing giant. But how can it be? To many, it simply confirms what they feared: even Google, replete with their infamous ‘Don’t Be Evil’ guiding principal, are hoarding data on people. As one pundit put it, they’re “the largest intelligence operation in the world”. There’s surely also a question of what other companies hold such potential power over so many of the planet’s residents.

There appears to be, in Internet law, a given right for companies to harvest people’s details, to store them, and to use them for commercially advantageous purposes. That’s not a specific charge levelled at Google, although they’ve certainly done enough to throw their guiding principal at least into debate. Yet every day, search engines are gathering and harvesting data on millions upon millions of people right across the globe. And sadly, not that many people seem to be alarmed by it.

I am, though.   

You catch me at a moment of guilt. Just a few hours ago, I found myself getting wound up by someone who wanted to talk to me on the phone about something, when my preference was that it was put through on an e-mail.

How screwed up is that?

I’ve long been a follower of the principle that human contact is best, although now find myself in a position where a team of writers and a team of PR people are trying to squeeze in a quick word during the day. I’m not complaining, as I far prefer talking to people than I do e-mailing them, but conversely, I do need the flexibility of e-mail to help co-ordinate my communications. For instance, when planning articles for Micro Mart, I tend to send an e-mail commission, which details what I want, when I want it, and crucially, saves a copy. In short, an electronic paper trail. At the moment, we’re running around 100 editorial pages a week, and there’s no other communication method I can think of that allows me to structure the throughput of ideas so effectively. The price? I end up getting unduly wound up when someone wants to talk about an idea over the phone that could easily be covered over mail, at a point when I simply have little time to squeeze in the conversation.

The irony was that until e-mail came along, I used to regard the telephone as a unwelcome form of communication. I hate the way that a phone call can jump any queue, be it in a shop, an office or a meeting. All of a sudden, a ringing electronic device demands, and receives, top priority over all humans in the vicinity. That’s screwed up, too.

And yet here I am, heavily reliant on one of the most impersonal forms of communication yet invented, and grasping onto the telephone as a real opportunity for a proper conversation with a human being.

I think I need to get out to the pub more…

Continuing my latest trend of stories that I can’t take any credit for, nonetheless a tale popped back into my head after some fun with service from a computer company recently. It was the usual tale of impersonal service, and I’m sure that most of us have an easy parallel.

But reading the news that Barclaycard are shutting another UK call centre, I can’t be the only one who is crying out for proper, human-centred customer service.

The story ran thus.

The man who told it lived in a small town. He regularly frequented the local computer shop, week in week out, buying little parts here and there, and generally having a browse.

One day, when he had a large party of friends over, he went to the local baker, and ordered a good number of doughnuts. He didn’t return for another year or so, more out of circumstance, I suspect, than the quality of the doughnuts.

Anyway, he continued to regularly pop into the computer store, but when the time came again to visit the bakers, they recognised him instantly as the man who bought the doughnuts. Meanwhile, the computer store, that he’d visited hundreds of times over the years, still treated him as if they didn’t know him from Adam. A tenner at the local bakers? Almost first name terms.

It’s a story with an obvious moral, but nonetheless an important one. Plus, it’s got doughnuts in it. And that’s never a bad thing.