Apparently, the internet isn’t magic and it can’t perform miracles. In this day and age. What utter balderdash! I’ve got my Star Trek Communicator, I’ve got my flying car (only you can’t see it because, um, my uncle crashed it and it’s in for repairs and it has a stealth mode that renders it completely invisible to the human eye, so it’s being worked on by alien mechanics on another planet), but I can’t have all my stupid problems solved by the almighty time-sink in the clouds?
Rubbish. I’ll prove it And by ‘prove’, I mean bounce around the internet for a whole afternoon with my head in my hands, weeping for the state of digital humanity. Going online can’t, at first glance, cure my rather persistent headaches – far from it, in fact. The internet, lovely though it is, does its best to twist an 8in drill bit directly into my frontal lobe by making me forget to wear my glasses and stare at the big glowing white thing in front of me. Stupid Font of a Blurry Facsimile of all Human Knowledge.
Surely something online can help, though? Early search results suggest I should get a brow lift or Botox – as if my glorious forehead weren’t shiny and immobile enough already – or perhaps try acupressure, an ancient Asian healing technique. I’m still smarting on alternative therapies after that rogue GP covered my stomach with acupuncture needles and forgot about me for two hours, leaving me in a side room listening to the Top 20 Interminably Depressing Funeral Marches on Radio 3.
The acupuncture didn’t even do me any good, mainly because I am cynical and curmudgeonly, and don’t believe that interrupting magic aura lines with bits of metal is the path to good health. Funny that. What the internet can do, because of its endless reams of teeth-grindingly awful twaddle, is (eventually) convince me to look away from my computer monitor and go and have a lie down, something that seems to take the edge off even if it doesn’t stop my head thumping.
I’m not sure if this is a win for the web or not, so let’s call the score tied. To a slightly fairer test, then. I didn’t really expect to find any magical HTML paracetamol, if I’m honest. But can I hope to find the advice that will make my pair of rambunctious kittens – currently trapped, annoyingly, in my bedroom until they are old enough to be released to the rest of the house – follow a proper human sleep cycle instead of jumping on my plums at 3.30am? I know I’m new to cat ownership, but that doesn’t sound like it’s too much to ask. The web is full of tips written by idiots who shouldn’t be allowed out of the house, let alone allowed to raise indoor fur-balls. But let’s play along.
Try feeding them late at night, says one site. This gives the spinning, fleshy clawpods the energy to play-fight for a solid three hours after the lights have been switched off, and ensures that they’re ready to inflict almighty defecation upon the room at 5AM. Not great.
Tip two, from a different site? Play with them. Wear them out. So we do. And they fall asleep at 8PM, absolutely refuse to wake up, then sink their claws into my arm the moment I’m nodding off later on. Stupid internet. Why you couldn’t have given me, for instance, some sort of cat-sleepening MP3 file, or the directions for implementing a machine which would keep them awake during the day, I don’t know. Rubbish.
Only one thing for it: Google, find me ‘cat hypnosis’. If they won’t calm down of their own accord, I shall Paul McKenna them into submission. One site suggests you make friends with the cat then stroke it a bit. Hey presto, hypnotic trance. Yes. Thanks. That’s great. Over at the BBC, there’s a story about a cat that’s a registered hypnotherapist; not quite what I was after, although teaching Smokey and Bella to lull me to sleep might tick the right box in a roundabout way.
There’s one site labelled ‘How to hypnotise a cat’, which in fact seems to be trying to sell me comedy contact lenses, while another carries the title ‘Make your cat STOP SMOKING through hypnosis!’. I don’t know exactly what they’re doing when they get around the back of the chest of drawers, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that.
This search is fruitless. By page 10 of Google’s results, I’ve lost the will to continue. The internet cannot even influence tiny, fuzzy creatures. All is lost. Fine. You win this time, internet. But I’ll be back. I’ll be back every day for the rest of my life and I will never, ever learn anything useful. Hey, Google. ‘How to learn useful things online’, if you please…