Doris Lessing

I have just finished reading the acceptance speech in my paper (it generally takes me all week to get through the Saturday Guardian) and, although I was utterly spellbound by her stories of Africa, I felt that familiar annoyance I always get when people slag off the Internet.

She says people 'waste all day blogging, etc.' Would she consider the keeping of a handwritten diary a waste of time?

Of course there is an awful lot of pointless sh*t in the blogosphere (probably including my own tedious ramblings), but what about blogs coming out of Iran and Afghanistan? Especially blogs by young women, many of them literally risking their lives to do it.

What about the Burmese bloggers, who let the world's media know what was going on during the recent crackdown?

So I would ask you this, Ms Lessing, if I had the opportunity: if Anne Frank had had a laptop and a WiFi connection in 1942, what do you think she would have done?