letters

Your article on ICL's PCTV concludes that ICL has come up with "Europe's first combined PC and television" and asks why it has not been done before. Well, it has - Apple's Macintosh Performa 630 CD/TV. We have been shipping the product since the early autumn and it was a best- seller across Europe at Christmas.

Russell Brady

Corporate relations manager Apple Computer UK

Brady@AppleLink.Apple. Com

I've been on-line for several months and find it extremely useful for downloading articles sending letters/notes/con-firmation of meetings to various friends and organisations. When it comes to the Net, however, after the initial new toy euphoria dissipated, I came to in the sober light of my telephone bill, and was forced to acknowledge that the Net is largely peopled by cyber-nerds, the logged-on version of train-spotters.

I did download the whole of Gawain and the Green Knight for a research project I am involved in on the Green Man (the figure often found on the walls of Gothic churches). For a while I searched the alt.mythology newsgroup but apart from one posting which brought me several e-mail correspondents, nothing much came of it. One snail mail letter in the Church Times brought me nearly 50 interesting replies with almost 100 site references.

I suspect that until every retired vicar and schoolmaster and every local historian in the country gets on the Net, snail mail and the paper and ink world will still be the main way we exchange information.

Mike Harding

mikeh@dent.demon.co.uk

I am an English ex-Naval officer living in California. Reading your article about how poorly connected British politicians are (20 March), I found myself dreading my return to the UK in the knowledge that I would find the same closed-mindedness and reluctance to change that I was so glad to leave.

Tim Bishop

Timbish@ix.netcom.com

We asked last week for e-mail addresses for politicians. We also gave some Labour addresses, but managed to get them wrong. They should be: Tony.Blair@geo2.poptel.org.uk; Chris.Smith@geo2.poptel.org.uk; Graham.Allen@ geo2.poptel.org.uk.

The Government's IT agency says that a list of MPs and their electronic addresses is available on the World Wide Web at http://nyx10.cs.du.edu:8001/cgi- bin/finger?dboothro.

The European Parliament Socialist Group says it wants to hear from you on: 100445.2402 @compu-serve.com.

And the Liberal Democrats give their addresses, as well as other information, on the Web at http://www.compulink.co.uk/ libdems/welcome.htm.

Probably the best political jumping off point on the Web is at: http://tardis.ed.ac.uk/ ajh/politics.html. This gets you the Government, LibDem and Labour Parties' pages. You can also e-mail several MPs by clicking on their names. It also gives you access to the Web page of Anne Campbell, the MP for Cambridge, which, among other things, has a guide to the city's pubs.

To see just how far ahead of us the Americans are have a look at: http://thomas.loc.gov/, which has every Congressional address.

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