Where is the internet? At the most metaphorical level, which is also the way that most of us think about it most of the time, it exists in a parallel universe called cyberspace. We peer into this other realm through our browser windows, and can take short cuts through it to places in our world that are remote in space and time. You could, for example, rewatch the fall of 17 wickets on the first day of the first Ashes test. Or you could take a look at the traffic on Fifth Avenue, or the shipping in Portsmouth Harbour. Or you could stay in cyberspace, assume a secret identity, and chat to someone else similarly disguised. Or you could play backgammon with them. Or you could download and play a game that you couldn't play in real life (or IRL, as they say in the chatrooms), such as the elegant and fiendish Blackshift (www.foon.co.uk/blackshift). Or you could - virtually speaking - sit in a quiet corner by yourself and read the newspaper. The possibilities are endless.

LRB 4 August 2005 | PDF Download