Please, please tell me I am not the only person who wishes that, if the new technology around which our lives now revolve had to be invented, that it had been done right first time?

If I added up all the hours of my life I’ve wasted just this week tackling technological “failures” . . .

Why, when they invented the tech that allows you to pay for goods online didn’t they do it properly, so the ID hackers we are all so scared of couldn’t make us jump through constant security hoops?

With several different bank and credit cards, numerous different passwords, as recommended by the IT experts, and umpteen different security questions, it’s amazing, really, that I ever spend any money at all to prop up our economy.

And why, when I leave a recorded message on my mobile phone, saying, “Please don’t leave a voicemail; I never listen to them. Text me instead,” (how much blunter can I be without being upfront rude?) do people still leave messages?

And why does the phone itself feel the need to helpfully remind me they are there, by bleeping irrittatingly at intervals? I know I must be able to turn this alert off, but, seeing as how I still can’t figure out how to turn the volume down so it doesn’t beep every time I hit a key while texting, don’t hold your breath.

I don’t think that I’m a techno-peasant; the term I prefer to whatever my fellow columnist, Will Guyatt, will level at me, in a future edition. How can I be, when I use computers daily, can text, email and even Skype and have mastered the 18 programmes on my washing machine? I reckon that I’m just old- fashioned. I just want things to work correctly, right from the start.