When I picked my 'cat's yellow eye' avatar, I really did think that it was quite cool - understated, yet distinctive. So I thought I had made a choice that I would stick with for a while.

However, it seems that my avatar is giving some people sleepless nights - and since it's not my desire to needlessly unsettle people, it means that once more I have to look for a new avatar.

So I will bid a sad farewell to the 'eye', even as I'm not yet quite sure what I will put in...

One of the things that fascinates me about the online world is how, in many respects, it is like the real world. In the real world, we have our inner person which is expressed in our thoughts, words and actions. And then we have our outer person, which is expressed in the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the books we read, etc.

Now in the online world, we're supposed to be just pure 'inner person'. After all, there's no physical body to clothe - all we have is just the words that...