I moved away from the UK a few years ago and was well out of touch until recently. Occasionally I would go the local internet café to see what emails I had (usually none worth reading) and how my football team was getting on (usually very badly indeed).

As the internet connection here in South America is generally pretty slow I would tend to lose the will to live by the time I had done these two things and would put everything else on hold in the vain hope of finding a better connection on my next visit.

After some time doing this I had kind of given up on ever getting back up to date with the entertainment and cultural issues in the UK. I kind of missed my weekly dose of my favourite soap opera and I would have liked to see what musical trends were happening but you can’t have everything in life and I had given up on being able to do this.

This all changed when I got my own internet connection in the house. It is quite expensive to do this here, which is why I didn’t do it in the first place, but a change in my job meant that I had some spare cash and couldn’t think of anything better to do with it than get connected to the internet again.

Get Some Downloads

At some point I seem to have taken the unconscious decision to turn my PC into a 80s throwback. My current screensaver features Count Duckula although I can’t rule out Dangermouse making a comeback at some point in the future. I also downloaded some of the songs from my youth which I hadn’t heard in years. I might be the only person in Latin America with a hard drive full of Rick Astley, Simple Minds, Van Morrison and Terence Trent D’Arby but I love listening to those old songs. I was even tempted by a Spectrum emulator at some point but deep in my head some hitherto unknown sad geek detector started ringing while I looked at this. It didn’t really matter though, as I was already transported back to my room in the 80s, watching Match of the Day and wondering whether I could find any old Opal Fruits down the back of my red tartan sofa bed.

Get Protected

As I started on my download blitz I realised that I had been sold a computer with a pretty poor antivirus program. It seemed to let a lot of dangerous stuff through so I searched for the best one I could find. I don’t know whether the level of risk is the same here as in the UK but I certainly felt a lot better knowing that I was protected as I indulged in my new favourite pastime of looking up old songs which would leave me with the taste of Vimto and Sherbet Dab on my tongue.

Get In Touch

When you live far from where you were born it is clear that you will soon start to lose touch with a lot of old friends. When I had extremely limited access to the internet I only sent a “Hi Mum” style email every few weeks. Now that the internet is in my house I can use Skype, Facebook and all sorts of other tools to stay in touch more regularly. For me this is the greatest benefit of being hooked up to the internet and I couldn’t live without it now. My Mum even bought a laptop to stay in touch with me and once she works out where the webcam is on it I might even get to see her face instead of the top of her head during our Skype calls.

To ensure a memorable internet experience it is a good idea to look for a McAfee download and get yourself fully protected.