SOME of you may remember being fed the notion that technology would free us all from the drudgery of work.

Schoolmasters waxed lyrical about how everyone would ultimately be on a three-day week, we wouldn't know what to do with our leisure time, and machines would be capable of doing everything in the home from washing-up to picking your nose.

A friend in showbusiness told me the other night how, whenever he returns from holiday, thousands - and he means thousands - of

e-mails have to be sorted.

After two weeks away, the basket is bulging with everything from the totally trivial to the extremely important.

The holiday effect has vanished within an hour of his return.

Let's be honest - e-mails are the new tyranny. Please don't kid yourself that the computer revolution has broken the chains of serfdom - those machines are really only the equivalent of new masters in charge of that metaphorical mowing meadow.

I'm not really a Luddite, you know. All right, yes I am.