You can recall posts from bulletin boards. Why can’t we get sent email back, and so save thousands immeasurable embarrassment, agony and humiliation? We are after all nearly ten percent of the way to the 22nd century. It must be possible.

Everyone must have had some brush with the perils of email. A friend of mine involved in plotting a surprise birthday party accidentally sent details to the birthday girl. She successfully pretended ignorance but played a masterful game of poop-the-party almost until the last minute. The conspirators were nervous wrecks one and all. Preventable agony…

I have only had one email embarrassment. A publisher sent me a book proposal. A quick glance told me that this was a well-known nutter and I sent back a jaunty email: ‘Wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. See you lunch Sunday’. Of course it went straight back to the proposer, who phoned the director of my institution threatening to sue. Luckily – because everyone can imagine themselves in the same position – the whole incident was treated as a great joke. Naturally, I looked like an idiot but nobody likes a smartarse so ultimately its all good.

Others haven’t been so lucky. Hitting ‘send to all’ has ruined lives, loves, friendships and careers. Come on computer geniuses of the world. Think of it as a public service. A humanitarian mission even. Plus anyone who can deliver it would surely make a nice little packet.