Peter Rhodes on 30 years of the web, a new face on our coins and how to remember asses

SO this is the week. This is the defining week, the crucial week the historical week. This is the week when the Mother of Parliaments votes on how and, . . . er, I do apologise. That was last Monday's intro.

AFTER last week's item on a proposed law to make the reporting of road accidents involving cats mandatory, a former police officer reveals the three little words drummed into him and his fellow recruits all those years ago to help them remember which animal-accidents had to be reported. HMS GAP BULLDOG stood for horse, mule, sheep, goat, ass, pig, bull (ie. cow) and dog.

I'M not entirely convinced. Memory-aids like the above, known as mnemonics, work best if you know the words but need to put them in the correct order. Thus, the objects orbiting the Sun are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Or as we kids remembered them: Men Very Easily Make Any Jugs Serve Useful Needy Purposes . When it comes to police officers reporting animal accidents, HMS GAP BULLDOG could just as easily stand for hamster, marmoset, stick-insect, gorilla, aardvark, possum, bullfinch and dogfish. Mind how you go . . .

THE great thing about the faces on English currency is that the average Brit can easily explain their achievements to foreigners. Wren? He built churches. Elizabeth Fry? She created soft prisons. Darwin? He invented tortoises. And so on. But how are we to explain the achievements of Stephen Hawking on the new 50p piece? Does one in a thousand Brits have the slightest idea what Hawking did? And even if you were knowledgeable enough to be able to explain that the coin features the thermodynamic entropy of a black hole, would one in a million understand?

IT is, by some calculations, the 30th birthday of the Internet. The world is awash with dazzling tributes to its achievements and terrible, dark warnings of how it is taking over our lives. My take on the web is that if you invite it into every corner of your existence it will dominate your life and probably ruin it. If you use it sensibly, avoid social media, shun online gambling and treat all money-making offers as criminal until proven otherwise, it is a useful tool.

AND don't believe everything you read about how the internet has changed the world. Thirty years ago we drove cars, took trains, flew in jets, wore denim, lived in houses made of bricks and played music on portable devices. In real terms, the world has probably changed less in the past 30 years than over any other 30-year period in the past 300 years. Discuss.

BE wary, too, of claims that the web is infallible. I've just deleted something promising "a special offer for loyal Google users in Batley."