Suddenly, problems with my Outlook Express, dammit. Incoming emails appear fine, but outgoing ones balk. I keep getting 'error' messages. The interpretation of which are completely lost to me. And despite this, the messages appear to be going out regardless.

Problem is, the system is not content with sending out each individual email merely once, but sends them out repeatedly. So I am then informed by my email correspondents that once is enough, thank you very much. They read the initial one and then set about deleting the following identical six messages.

I enjoy using Outlook Express, and have no wish to change to another email system. I've called Bell Sympatico twice thus far, and know that I will have to call them again for technical assistance to solve this truly irritating problem. The last technician who so kindly gave his expert assistance also rendered his expert advice, that I turn to using Hot Mail.

My granddaughter has demonstrated to me how Hot Mail is used, and I am not impressed. My Outlook Express, said the second off-shore technical advisor, has been corrupted. Well, is it too much to ask that it be uncorrupted? Because, as far as I'm concerned the 'corruption' occurred when Bell Canada originally decided in complicity with Microsoft that it would no longer support sending out emails with 'too many' graphics.

I've long been accustomed to forwarding emails containing attachments which I receive from friends. I ordinarily circulate them to a number of my email friends. A week ago I discovered that my emails were being blocked, and that is when the first notices of 'error' began to appear, discomfitingly.

And it's also when I called for the first time and that technician explained to me that sending on emails containing 'too many' attachments was now forbidden by Bell Sympatico to whom I pay a monthly fee for services. Services the quality of which are steeply declining, alas.

Despite which, they always end the sessions by chirpily thanking me for using Bell Sympatico's services. And well they should. And well, perhaps I should not be.

The second technician recommended that I allow him to direct access my computer by authorizing it on line and I followed his instructions, then watched as he remotely tried this that and the other remedy, finding nothing, apparently, that would solve my problem of balky email sending. Upon which, after a tedious 40 minutes of trying and talking, he pronounced the program to be inoperable.

After that session I set about correcting a number of changes he had initiated which I had not authorized and which were decidedly to my disadvantage, and discovered that the situation remained as it was before I had contacted Bell Sympatico to speak with the second off-shore technician.

Patience is a virtue, but mine is definitely growing slender. I cannot, given all the urgent matters to be attended to in my life at present, submit to another irritating consultation through Bell Sympatico's expert call centres, but I will get around to it, eventually.