You may have noticed that the debonair Lucy Sherriff has not been providing her daily insights into hardware, security and random Internet sex stories in the last week. This is for the simple reason that she has upped and left the esteemed organ that is The Reg.

Initial concerns were that her belly-button piercing may have gone septic and she had been rushed to hospital to have her abdomen removed. But no. Staff also questioned de management over whether they had come good on their promise to sack Lucy if enough people didn't buy Reg merchandise. Suspicion grew when T-shirt guru Lester Haines failed to turn up to the office for a week. But it turned out he had simply been cementing South American relations.

We scoured her email, worried that she had taken up one of the many offers from rich, lonely Yanks living in Iowa promising "employment" and full board and lodgings. But to no avail.

Then, someone purporting to be her started postings messages on the Reg forum, talking of a new life among bunnies. Had she been recalled to the farm because of the foot and mouth restrictions?

However, a mere 10 days later, John "Lips" Leyden's brain slipped into gear. Staring out of the alcoholic fug, he recalled Lucy telling us that she was going to work for BT. A mole in our midsts? No. Following some first-rate investigative journalism, we tracked her down to Beattie. A PR agency!

Anti-cult specialists were immediately dispatched but they could not persuade her to return. Instead they handed us a hand-written note from Lucy. It read:

"Thank you for your concern but I am happy here. I have made a lot of new friends. While I was happy at the Reg, my life was missing something. I realised that I wasn't happy just talking to out-there physicists on the phone, I wanted to be among them, discuss pressing issues in nano-technology and quantum mechanics. I now have that. My group - they don't like the word commune - has asked me to talk to these people and then tell them what they said in real English. They're not a PR agency, that's just a cover for the real, useful, life-affirming work they really do. Bless you all. Lucy"

We can only hope she will regain her senses.

Have fun darlin. ®