Here is a turn up for the books. Having devoted many inches in this column in the past complaining about the cost of Internet access in this country, a report by watchdog Oftel has revealed that accessing the Web in the UK is cheaper than it is in Silicon Valley.

The study will be a boost to both BT, which has struggled for credibility in its online efforts, and the government's initiative to make Britain a leader in the Internet age.

According to Oftel's report, held over six countries, Britons spend an average of £18 a month on unlimited dial-up Internet access, compared with £19 in California and a whopping £39 in Germany.

As many as 40 per cent of the nation's Internet Service Providers still face closure in the next 18 months, with unmetered access provision cited as one of the main factors leading to bankruptcy.

Another Oftel study found that 2.3m British homes are now subscribing to unmetered Internet access.

I am not too sure about this one. A new service available at ww.saw-you.com allows you to register a description of yourself, your mobile phone number and a list of the places you regularly hang out. Then, if a potential admirer's message matches your description of yourself, that message is forwarded on to your special message box for you to pick up at a later date. It sounds complicated, but is actually quite a simple idea, if a little bizarre.

These days you can do most things online, but the Internet revolution went just a little too far for the Vatican recently. It has just turned down a request for virtual confessions.

"The Internet is a wonderful instrument for evangelisation and pastoral service, but it will never be possible to confess online," Archbishop John Foley, the president of the special council, was quoted as saying. He said that confession must always be carried out within the sacramental context of face-to-face meetings.

Imagine owning a company with a name that Microsoft suddenly decided that it wants to use and will pay you to give it up. You would probably feel that you'd won the lottery, wouldn't you?

That is exactly what has just happened to Xbox Technologies, a loss-making holding company in Florida, US. While its business is nothing remarkable, the name of their company certainly is; being the same name as Microsoft's soon to be released game console.

The founders of Xbox Technologies were initially a little miffed to discover that Microsoft was using their name until they were offered cash for it.

No doubt they are now rubbing their hands with glee while trying to think up a new name for their company.

A whole raft of new OEWebby words from modern culture are going into the latest version of the Oxford English Dictionary. The IT and Net-based words include: .com, FAQ, HTTP, HTML, homepage, information superhighway, MP3 search engine, spam, smiley face, snail mail, WAP and Y2K. The new words will appear in the online version of the OED straight away but there are no plans to reprint the complete dictionary for another ten years.