But not this time. They just can’t figure it out.

Trouble is, there’s always some strange problem. It’s never a ten-minute job. They are always baffled.

This particular nineteen-year-old is now going through the items in My Computer, and clicking OK on each. It’s the fifth time he’s done this—pulling up the items, and clicking OK. Perhaps it’s like a combination lock: if only he can click the OKs in the right sequence the machine will reveal its mysteries. It’s the computer equivalent of a mechanic hitting the underside of your car with a stick, hoping the thing will suddenly roar back into life.

I just wish he’d admitted the truth when he first came to the door. ‘Computers, sir, are a mystery.’ That’s how he should have begun. ‘We know not what motivates them in their strange ways, nor how to guide or control their behaviour. I shall make various incantations before your machine, and I shall toggle between various items in My Computer, virtually at random, and we shall see if anything happens. I can make no promises. The whole process shall take three hours, after which I shall grow tired. I shall then leave, promising to return the next day, which is the last you shall see of me.’

That, at least, would be honest.

Why can’t he just confess to his quasi-mystical role? Forget the zip-up jackets and black pants and go for the whole witchdoctor look. I’d like to see grass skirts, feathers taped to legs and a cassowary bone through the nose. Then I could have a little confidence my networking problems would be solved.

The young man is from the store which sold me the computer and its various ‘plug-and-go’ devices, so no way will he admit there’s a bug or a problem, although some way through the third hour, he confesses it may have ‘a shortcoming’. Aware he has conceded too much, he then interrogates me about the software I’m using, pointing out that his company only ‘supports’ certain combinations. This interrogation continues for some time, with the young man shaking his head occasionally. ‘We don’t support that, sir, not at all,’ he says grimly, in much the same tone as William Wilberforce once declared that he didn’t support slavery. I feel as if I’ve been caught out in some sort of unsavoury practice.

The Fridge Man never behaved like this, back in the early stages of the Revolt of the Appliances. ‘Could be anything,’ he’d said, as he advised us to throw out the stinking, moaning, defrosting wreck. ‘Once they start to go wrong, you know, there’s no end to your problems.’ A fridge is much simpler than a computer, and yet this man had humility in the face of its minor complexities. If this had been the Computer Man, I’d be facing an interrogation about my fridge usage: ‘You didn’t put meat in the salad compartment, did you? Or packets of ham in the butter section. I’m afraid Westinghouse doesn’t support that sort of thing.’

Does anybody know how computers work? Sometimes I think Bill Gates might, but even then I’m not sure. Perhaps, in that sprawling Microsoft compound in Seattle, they work on the same principles of trial and error; of opening and clicking at random. In huge rooms, technicians connect any old wires and record what happens. After 10,000 random connections, they discover they’ve invented Spell Check. A little later, in some corner of the vast space, there’s a sudden shout of delight: an overweight technician has fallen heavily against a box of microprocessors and invented Windows XP.

Close to the end of the third hour, the nineteen-year-old finally succeeds in getting the computer going, having stumbled upon the right incantation, combined with the correct placement of the cassowary bone in his nose. He presents a bill which is staggering in its size and promptly leaves.

Together with Jocasta, I survey the house. Every appliance has collapsed and then been either replaced or repaired. The bank account is now in sharply negative territory.

I march through the kitchen and hear them muttering, planning fresh battles.