Shock: Statistics show that the over-60 silver foxes are using the internet, gasp!

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silverfoxpic.jpg David Attenborough Katherine Hannaford reports on the latest trend amongst silver foxes, a new-fangled thing called INTERNET BROWSING.

The silver fox, a once-rare breed but now filling our nursing hospitals and granny flats more and more often these days, demanding mushy-peas and the volume cranked up on The Last of The Summer Wine, has shocked the fox-loving community by confirming in a survey with Pipex Internet that not only do they know what the internet is, but they use it. The Official Fox Journal and Hare & Hound magazine have already written 10-page reports on this shocking phenomenon, but little do they realise just how serious this trend amongst silver foxes is, dubbed ‘silver surfing’.

Obviously the younger generations are trying to stop this epidemic, putting complicated five-letter passwords on their computers and setting the clocks forward two hours to send the silver foxes off to bed earlier and earlier each night, but it is a growing problem in our fox-loving community.

Thankfully, the over-60s, or to use their species name, Silverus Vulpes Vulpes (silver foxes, to you and I), claim they only use the internet to check their email, but complained that their children, and children’s children, spend most of their time visiting sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Or, as one silver fox complained “my daughter is always hogging the box with the flashing lights each night, uploading gramophone records to MySpatial or Headbook, when I urgently need to email Beatrice the details of next week’s bingo meet-up”.

76% of users under 30 are using the net to check social networking sites, and an even larger 84% downloading music. It seems the silver foxes have adapted rather well to outside influences, evolving over time to actually use the internet to download music. Admittedly only 7% of the over-60s silver foxes are downloading music at any given time, but as Charles Darwin proved years back, natural selection will take its course, and these Perry Como-listening oldies will one day rule the roost of the animal kingdom.

One complaint the silver foxes did make however, in the survey hosted by Pipex Internet, was that they’d love to make appointments online with their doctor, hospital or dentist. The younger generation of fox cubs however expressed a desire to order a takeaway meal online. These dim-witted foxes are feared to become extinct shortly, as obviously pizza places have been allowing online-orders for years. Natural selection is a fierce monster to be afraid of, and I, David Attenborough Katherine Hannaford, will document it till the end of time in my longwinded diatribes available on BBC Tech Digest.

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Katherine Hannaford
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