There's a handy website, http://tinyurl.com, that shrinks very long web addresses into very short ones. This is useful when sending hyperlinks by email, as they can get broken up on their way through cyberspace, and so be difficult for the person at the other end to click on: tinyurl.com/53js3, for example, takes you to a map showing the location of the London Review Bookshop; the actual address is http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=530255&y=181628&z=0&sv=WC1A+2JL&st=2&pc=WC1A+2JL&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf, which I bet you can't be bothered to type in. If you go to tinyurl.com/1, you will see that the creator of the site is a unicycling enthusiast - committed to minimalism in more ways than one.

LRB 18 November 2004 | PDF Download