I have been in an earthquake that registered .7.5 on the Richter Scale, a tsunami that followed and the aftershocks that lasted for weeks. I have survived a hurricane with winds that hit nearly 300kms per hour and destroyed a tenth of the homes in the town, including the one I happened to be in.

I have survived angry listeners and readers who objected to news reports I have written or accusing me of being biased - and lots of other things.

And, in all of this, I have tried to remain calm.(imagine now some gentle musical accompaniment in the background, probably a harp) and restrained but I must admit that cracks have appeared in that serenity lately since I had to buy a new computer.

It is true that Williams, despite many skills learned over the years, has never really been at ease with computers. This became apparent when these strange machines started telling me I had 'made a fatal error' or executed an 'illegal' something.

Now, in all those years I have been able to gain a smattering of knowledge of the English language and understand the meaning of 'fatal' and 'illegal' - and I still don't know what I did wrong.

And even today a sign will come on my computer screen to tell me that my 'virtual memory' is getting overcrowded. This really hurts because I know my memory is so crowded with facts and details learned over the decades that (my daughters keep telling me) things I have been told somehow get lost in all that maze of information inside my Winnie-the-Poo brain. I blame my virtual memory.

(Maybe this is worthy of scientific study. Would I have grown taller if I didn't have such a brain made heavy with all this information - did having a heavy brain squash me down so shirt collars no longer fit?)

But back to the calm-shattering experience of being confronted with a new computer. It's nothing like the one I spent years learning about. It's portable and has a magic little box that you touch and all the stuff you have written suddenly disappears.

And the manufacturers have created microscopic icons which, if you can see them clearly, are nothing like those I have come to understand - and sometimes used.

Surely we need some international body to tell the computer people to stick to the rules. Imagine what it would be like if someone changed the road rules every few years and you had to learn about them by practice.

Some standardisation would also save me shouting such things as "Goodness I'm upset!" (actually those aren't the real words I said but you know what I mean).