Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2000/01/07/uk_eenvoy_flies/

UK e-envoy flies in

From Down Under to Downing Street

By Tim Richardson

Posted in On-Prem, 7th January 2000 16:53 GMT

Britain's long-awaited e-envoy will finally take his seat in Downing Street on Tuesday afternoon and start work immediately on wiring up Britain for the future, The Register can confirm.

Alex Allan will fly in from Australia on Tuesday morning and head straight for his desk. He won't pass go or pick up £200 but instead will begin work despite having endured a long haul flight from Down Under.

A spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office wouldn't say what his first job might be. As the man responsible for all things wired he won't need a tour of the stationery cupboard since, no doubt, he'll be working in the uncluttered utopia of a paperless office. And now that the millennium bug has been added to the World Health Organisation's (WHO's) very short list of extinct diseases (i.e. smallpox, although there are rumours that polio could go that way too) neither will he have to deal with that.

Instead, he can hang around with his chino-and-button-down-shirt-wearing New Media Team and start working out how they're going to pave the way for Britain's wired revolution. No? Surely, it would be unthinkable that Allan - like so many unfortunate people who start a new job - would end up spending the afternoon under his desk with a bunch of cables trying to figure out why he can't get connected to the office LAN. Or why his phone won't work?

It's equally unthinkable that he would be asked to go to the Downing Street stores in search of a long weight (wait) - geddit? - or some equally tiresome job place initiation. ®

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