On Wednesday, at around 7pm, I signed my phone onto Yahoo! Instant Messenger, just in case someone felt like getting in touch with me while I was in the pub.

Five minutes ago, I received four text messages on my phone in quick succession: one informing me I'd been signed on to YIM!, two messages from friends, and a final text alerting me that I had been signed off again.

By my estimate, this makes the new definition of 'instant' somewhere close to forty-four hours.