The other day, in a nostalgic moment, I thought back to the first time I surfed the web. It was in the computer room of the Arkwright building at Nottingham Trent University. A suitably grand setting for an encounter with the modern world.

The year was 1996 and the search engine Alta Vista if I remember correctly. After a few aimless clicks around this new thing I thought that perhaps looking something up might be a good idea.

The first thing I used the web for was to find a recipe for carrot cake. It came up trumps, and so did the cake.