I google, you google, he she or it googles

I can't remember quite when I started to use Google. I was slightly put off it in the early days because it became the search engine of choice on the company's internal web site. This was full of Amazingly Good News about How Fantastically Well our Company was Doing. Unfortunately we all knew it was in Big Trouble but the only clue to that on the site was the share price tucked away in a corner. It was falling.

The site was maintained by the department my friend John called the 'nail-varnish' although not to their faces. I'm ashamed to say that I sometimes referred to them as 'those daft tarts in HR'. They were terribly keen on whatever was the latest corporate fad but they weren't all women and they weren't all completely daft.

One has to adopt the ethos of one's department.

Anyway they had enough influence to send us away occasionally on the sort of courses during which we had to walk blindfold through stinging nettles or drop eggs off the fire-escapes of middle-market hotels suspended on parachutes made out of paper. The eggs not the hotels. This was supposed to build team spirit but in reality it made us despise each other and the Company even more.

So it took me a while to put Lycos to one side and become a Google addict. It's no exaggeration to say that it has changed my life and that I use it many times pretty much every day. It's hard to remember what life was like pre-Google.

The strange thing is how they, along with Apple, have managed to retain their image as the "good guys" whilst poor old Microsoft is now despised by the usual suspects who see conspiracy around every corner. Odd; Bill Gates seems to me to be a pretty inoffensive member of the human race.

Anyway there was a nice little programme on BBC2 last night about Google. Did you watch it?