When I first went on the net

Got my very first computer ever at the end of 1998 (a place called Time computers and cost me around £1400.  It had a 10GB hard drive and everyone thought that was huge at the time). Didn't go on the net till about 6 months later. You had to connect your computer to a phone line and you had to pay for each minute you were online. So even when I figured out how to get on the net, I only spent very brief periods online.

However, in 1999 or 2000 my phone company, NTL, introduced a special offer. On Saturday you could ring a national number (as opposed to a cheaper local number) and speak on the phone to someone as long as you like, all for 40p!

So what I did is I used this national number for my computer to connect up to the net! Hence, each Friday at midnight I went on the net. And in the morning I connected to the net and was on it all day until midnight. So spent around 2 hours after midnight on net, then on all day Saturday too (never went on for the rest of the week of course since it would have cost me a packet).

It didn't even cost me 40p since NTL had another offer whereby if you spent a certain amount on telephone bills you got a discount. But they applied the discount before reducing my Saturday bills to 40p. They result was that NTL actually gave me money for going on the net all day!