I had an email from Oliver yesterday telling me, with some concern, that he could no longer access these pages.
Of course, as you know, he not only reads them, but is an occasional contributor, especially if I have had rather too jovial an evening and am no longer capable of writing anything coherent.
When he came back from his adventures on the seven seas, and entered the address into his computer, he was expecting to find out what we had all been up to. Instead, a grumpy-looking black square appeared, telling him firmly that access to the Windermere Diaries website Had Been Blocked.
The reason given was that it contained too much pornography, and explicit sexual content.
I think it would be accurate to say that I was surprised to hear this.
I had not considered that the goings-on so faithfully reported here might be, for somebody, a source of rascally excitement.
Truly it must take all sorts.
I thought that perhaps I might have inadvertently said something which could possibly be considered inappropriate for teenage eyes, and spent some time trawling through these pages to see if I could work out what it might be.
I do not tend to go back and read my previous writings very often, and so it was an interesting half an hour. Unfortunately, or more accurately, fortunately, other than an infuriatingly random application of commas, usually in the entries written after the evening glass of wine, I could find nothing to which a school might sensibly object.
In the end I sent an email, and then telephoned this afternoon.
Eventually I managed to speak to an IT manager, who was really rather splendidly helpful.
He explained that the blocking of websites was not done by a person, but by a computer program, and thought that perhaps I had used a word or a sentence which might be a trigger.
I thought quite hard about this, but decided it was a bit improbable, although am open to ideas on the subject. If anybody can think of any words I might have used which have been so excitingly racy that a computer might think I was describing those moments when a mummy-and-a-daddy-love-each-other-very-much, I would be interested to hear about it. Or on reflection, perhaps better not, we don’t want to get in trouble again. Answers on a postcard please.
Failing that, the IT chap said, it might be just one of those random cyber anomalies. In any case, he promised, he had now reassured their censorship machine that I was respectable, and it would not happen again.
He added, however, that really I needed to make the site secure, by giving it an http address.
I said that I had considered it, but investigation had revealed that in fact I was too thick to manage it, and I could hear him nodding in agreement.
He said that I ought to look it up and do it anyway, otherwise nobody would ever be able to find it, because search engines would ignore it as being wild and unlawful.
I have tried to do this before, and think that perhaps I ought to have another go. Perhaps one day when we have got a cupboard full of biscuits and it is too wet to saw up firewood.
He was a jolly nice chap. I thanked him profusely, and came away feeling rather pleased with myself, because I had somehow managed to write a website which was rascally enough to be unsuitable for children. A bit like Jilly Cooper, whose books, I have discovered, have now been condemned as being unsuitable for modern audiences. This is not because of the sex scenes, which are so racy that I am embarrassed to listen to them on the speaker in the taxi in front of myself, but because she reveals shocking racial and gender-based prejudices.
I am too weary of these opinions even to try and counter them. The world can be quite mental sometimes.
It does not matter. The respectability of these pages, at least, is no longer in doubt. You need not feel concern, readers, your sensibilities are safe in my hands. We have been passed as being Suitable For Children.
I expect you are very relieved.
Have a picture of our field, just to add some more excitement.
