It is easy to lose the initial sense of wonder at just how much information there is on the internet. We grow into such things so quickly that soon enough, a rather ho-hum attitude can take its place.

I would have been leaping with joy when I was in Year 7 if I could have clicked a mouse and been presented with, say, dozens of articles about and images of HMS Dreadnought. I would have been stilled with amazement if my fuzzy black and white pictures of galaxies, nebula and other cosmic objects could be seen in colour, with clarity, replete with oodles of erudite commentary.

Getting information back then meant a trip to the local library, then a fingers-crossed search through card catalogues to see if there might be a book. Finally if a single resource on the subject in question existed, was it on the shelves or running the gambit of other borrowers? Walking out of the library with such a treasure was happiness itself, I can tell you.

Of course, there is a flip side to all this too. The relative scarcity of resources for a young boy back then created its own dynamic circle of  frustration, followed by an energetic creativity. The difficulty of getting things made them all the more precious - the effort to find something, anything, more urgent.

I wonder if the abundance of everything, all right there in your hand, doesn't promote a feeling of ennui. It is, after all, quite possible to be bored by too much, all the time, attained with little or no effort. I don't hanker for the old, but I do fear that the new may be a double-edged sword.