Right, let's talk altruism . . .

The greatest communications event of our lifetime, the Internet has given rise to new strains of mankind. Chief among these is the Armchair Altruist.

While many of us are Armchair Athletes and play a better game of anything than the guys who are paid millions to physically participate, the Armchair Altruist doesn't just shout from the sidelines. No, he or she sends e-mails - hundreds of e-mails - to let you know what a crappy state the world is in; to ruin your supper with pictures of starving kids in Ethiopia; to let you know that even though you're an abomination, Jesus loves you.

There's the mail that tells you about the electricity price hike; the perfume salesman who is going to mug you and shove you in the boot/trunk of your own car; the Spotted Owl Dilemma in Alaska that YOU can change if you just sign here; the pair of green shoelaces tied to your gate that indicates a burglar is "communicating" with his gang and you're going to be robbed; the gang member who flashes his lights at you on the highway and if you flash back you get kidnapped and taken to Outer Mongolia as a sex slave. The list is endless - and all the information is bad. It's like having your unhappily married up-country aunt pop up in your mailbox every three minutes to tell you what a drag life is.

Now, the Armchair Altruist hasn't quite worked out that if you send a mail to fifteen people and ask them to sign a petition (which must then be forwarded to a non-existant government official), each person who receives that mail is going to be, say, Number Ten on their list. The first fifteen people they send it to are all going to be Number Eleven. How many Armchair Altruists must sign this bloody thing before one of us becomes Number Five Hundred and forwards it?

Perhaps it salves the conscience to be doing something. Most Armchair Altruists wouldn't dream of getting off their butts and marching in a peace rally; voting for a candidate in real life; sending hard cash to the starving; or tying themselves to a tree to save the Spotted Owl. Once they asked South Africans not to fill up with petrol on ONE specific day. The garages were packed. I suppose these people had sent an e-mail and felt they had done their bit already.

Now, I'm all for getting the word out there. Tell people how things really are so they don't just believe what they see on the news. But don't make me sign a daft little e-mail - usually badly written and never read by anyone who can do something. Don't make me forward it to all of my "contacts" or some armless war victim won't get fed for a month. If you care that much, go visit him and take some food with you.

I am not without compassion, but I am getting very tired of - not to mention "desensitised" by - the bad news mails that keep appearing in my mailbox. Funny, they always seem to come from the same people, too. The ones who would do well to fix their own lives before they embark on the cause of the electricity price hike killing off Spotted Owls.

I may not be right about this, but I have a thought: Either get off your Altruistic butt and DO something, or be like an Armchair Athlete and treat the whole thing as a game.