I invented the internet – I worry my creation has given way to the likes of QAnon

But one thing Cerf is quite keen to stress is that for the first several decades after what became the internet was launched, it was not remotely a big deal. ‘The computer science departments were asking Darpa, “Please buy us another world-class computer every year, so we can keep doing worldwide research,”’ Cerf recalls. ‘And Darpa is saying: “We can’t afford to do that – they’re million-dollar machines!” ‘So Darpa said, “We’re going to build a network and you can share.” And everybody hated that. But Darpa said, “We’re building the network anyway.”’ The first connection on what became the internet was activated in 1969, entirely without fanfare – a few postgraduate students in a room in the University of California, Los Angeles, were trying to test the new connection by logging in to a computer remotely. In practice, the ‘l’ sent with no problems, and so did the ‘o’ – but when they tried to send the ‘g’, it promptly crashed the remote computer, meaning the first effort online message sent was a strangely apt ‘lo’.