There is no 'My friends rock' in team

Well our little digital community has started to pick up some serious momentum. What with Shoelace channelling Maddox and Tucker Max to predictably nose-thumbing and side-splitting effect over at Balls to Monty and Cowboy Funk going Into the Neon Sun with some truly evocative and thought-provoking writing it seems my posse is going global. Even the Gaffertape Messageboard is ablaze with geek rants and self-referential love fests. And it drops my jaw to think what we're capable of now, how this new media is making traditional publishing routes look as antiquated as a guy with a lute riding from town to town singing about last year's coronation or beheading or interesting plague. Whatever.

I love how much closer the world is. Distance has collapsed in on itself and we can push through the membrane of linear space and reach people a lifetime away. Everyone is now in earshot. We can huddle from the four corners of the Earth.

And this is brilliant news because what I love more than anything else in the world is being in a gang. I want to be Face in the A-Team. I want to be Wash onboard Serenity, trading gags and bullets with embittered Space Mafia. I want to join the Avengers and borrow Thor's shampoo, I want to hang out at Central Perk, I want to be one of the Dirty Dozen who survived. I want to fly Memphis Belle, I want to share a flat with Daisy and Tim, I want to discover who stole Mrs Simkins famous sponge cake as part of the Famous ... six. I adore teamwork, shared purpose and group memories. Do you remember when ...? a friend used to say, is a phrase which binds people together for life. The Scooby Gang, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spooks, The West Wing, Hustle, Starsky and Hutch ... these are great teams, they are part of something bigger than themselves. And they get to banter.

Because as you grow older you move away from your friends, you set up your home where the work is and there's no more popping round to your mates for tea. No more deciding to watch the sun rise at 5 in the morning. No more 'do you remember when?'.

But now there's the internet and suddenly we're all together again. Chatting every day, making each other laugh, coming up with mad plans for the future. And suddenly without warning ... I have my gang back, I'm part of something bigger again. So I can work on a new show poster design with Cowboy Jonny or shoot bad guys atop digital mountain peaks with Shoelace. I can congratulate a group of people on a brilliant theatrical production and even though they are now spread out across the whole country, they'll all hear me.

People say technology is creating a sterile and sectioned society where no one talks anymore. I disagree, perhaps one day in the future machines will rise up and throw off the yoke of human dominion and crush us under their electronic heel but until then I say give them a break.

They gave me my friends back.