Undo

I downloaded Google Earth and, of course, was immediately hooked. The first thing I noticed is that there are surprisingly few people around and this has led me to wonder if there are not really over six billion people in the world today. (I extrapolated from an area of Stevenage -- the town I reluctantly call home -- and calculated the global population at between 800 and 1200.)

Anyway, I was viewing a friend's house in Wolverhampton but found the graphic which displayed the text of what was being shown was in the way; so I right-clicked on it and selected 'delete'. A little window popped up asking me if I was sure I wanted to delete the said location. I confirmed that I did.

I then picked up the phone to my friend in Wolverhampton. I was going to joke that she ought to tidy her garden or something, but all I got was a steady tone. I thought nothing of it as I knew she had had trouble with her line recently.

I went back to Google Earth and spent a happy couple of hours searching the planet, deleting the obtrusive graphic each time until I became bored, at which point I switched on the TV. The news was on. Apparently, the earth was being ravaged by catastrophic seismic disasters. I was glued to the set and the images and eye-witness reports of isolated incidents of buildings simply vanishing, leaving only a gaping wound in the ground.

Then the reporter said something that, frankly, made me feel sick. The first of these unexplained phenomena took place in England. The West Midlands to be precise. In fact, to be even more precise, Wolverhampton. I watched as the wobbly camera-shot passed down a road I am very familiar with until it came to a rest at where my friend's house once was but was now just a hole in the ground between two houses.

For the next half an hour I made notes of the affected areas with a growing sense of dread. I ran up to my computer to confirm what I already knew: I had deleted about thirty locations around the world.

Buckingham Palace -- with the queen in residence -- gone; the Taj Mahal, gone; the pyramids at Giza, gone; the house I was born in, gone. All told, twenty-eight places of world-wide interest had been deleted . . . by me. (I include the house I was born in to be a landmark of world-wide interest.)

Well, you can imagine how I felt. Embarrassed mostly. They'd be bound to trace it back to me and then what? I'd never be able to live it down.

I had a cup of tea. Well, I am British after all. I trawled the help section of Google Earth but there was nothing. The troubleshooting section was even less help. Then it occurred to me: the Undo button!

I clicked Undo as many times as I could until it greyed out. When it did, I phoned my friend. She picked up sounding sleepy. I asked her if she was all right but she didn't know what I was talking about as she had just woken from a nap; so I told her to look out her window.

She did so and was utterly baffled to see news crews gathered outside, with reporters excitedly talking into cameras and the emergency services shaking their heads in wonder.

The same scenes were replicated around the world. I watched the news as the queen of England was led shakily from the Palace into the back of a waiting ambulance; I changed channels and, thank goodness, the pyramids were back among cheering scenes, and theTaj Mahal was back where it belonged, too.

(I also deleted Poland to see if anyone would notice; so far no one has.)