SKYPE has the HOTS for my NAKED WIFE

Glued to the goggle-box

Our irrepressible love for watching any old crap as long as it's on video helps explain the extraordinary popularity of TV programmes such as X Factor or The Voice. Cynicism aside, surely it must have struck even dedicated reality TV fans that these are programmes that purport to be musical talent shows yet produce shockingly few successful music acts whose careers last longer than a few weeks, winners included. You see, it's all about the visual – "Djya see wossaname last night, she woz amazin' etc" – and it's only when viewers unexpectedly hear the winners' songs on the radio later on that they realise what utter fucking shit they really are.

The other day, I found myself chatting with a technical author who was bemoaning the recent sharp drop in sales of his once-popular line of how-to books. It had nothing to do with print versus ebooks, he assured me: it was entirely due to the rise of video training. No matter how much he wants to tell learners that a book will always be more comprehensive in content and more convenient to use than a handful of blurry single-task online videos, there it is. Video is the new default choice. The People Have Spoken.

This probably explains why my wife, fresh from the shower and wandering into our shared home office wearing nothing but a towel and a smile, found herself standing in front of the aforementioned "turned on" webcam. All I had done was launch Skype and check the audio levels.

Yes, I know it might seem logical to you that Skype would trigger a webcam at this point but I had absolutely no intention of video-calling anyone. Video calls were invented for hospital-bound methuselahs cooing over favourite great-great-grandchildren who choose to demonstrate their fondness for their fawning ancestors by fucking off to Australia. Skype's business users, on the other hand, tend to use it for long inter-site conversations from their smartphones and computer-based conference calls without feeling the need to evaluate each other's ties or admire their office wallpaper.

My Skyping is pretty typical: it starts by bouncing a bunch of "Where the bloody hell are you?" messages back and forth, followed by a lot of fiddling around with headphones and audio settings, before joining a three- or four-way voice call. Why Skype feels the need to enable the webcam and have a good look around my room before I've even started typing is beyond me. I guess Skype is just a nosey bastard, with a big measure of creepiness thrown in.

Hooray! You launched me! Go on, check that your microphone is working. Ha! Gotcha! I know your status is currently "Offline" and you've not run a video call for more than a year but I'm going to spontaneously switch on the webcam and start watching you anyway. Jeez, dude, you look nothing like your profile picture – what happened to your hair? Oho, and who's this walking into shot behind you? Phwwoarr! Get a load of...

Force Quit.