Ben-Ze'ev elaborates a thesis from his previous work on the subtlety of emotions: we are witnessing an inexorable

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Ben-Ze'ev elaborates a thesis from his previous work on the subtlety of emotions: we are witnessing an inexorable rise in "flexible relationships", where the challenge of "whetting your appetite outside while eating at home" (ie long-term commitment and short-term randiness) achieve a better, less duplicitous balance For him, cyber-love is the perfect solution. Can we really "betray" our fleshly lovers, when the only fingertips our digital lovers experience are those which overload their text boxes?Movingly, much of the testimony seems to be from cohabiting men and women over 40. Many are excited to find this outlet for the fantasy and flirtation that has died in their real relationships, and some even share the experience with their partners ("after cybering, we have GREAT sex!").Yet others, discovering emotional and sexual infidelity, express the kind of hurt and bewilderment which any era would recognise, whether the revelation comes by perfumed letter, an overheard conversation on the hallway telephone, or an instant messaging archive. It seems doubtful that that the virtualities of the internet will make "romantic exclusivity" - or love, in other words - any less painful. Indeed, in an age where our mobility in space, time and the market is presumed, cyberspace is as likely to become a medium for the most ardent, even traditional, of romances as it is to herald some new, plastic form of love.As a long-term cyber-romantic, allow me to exemplify. You turn on your computer, the broadband kicks in, and you're in real-time with the loved one, hundreds or thousands of miles away. If she has put her webcam on, you might even see her as she busies around the room, tending to her child, reading a paper, perhaps even laughing delightedly at your appearance.If not, you have to be content with the emoticons that your service provides for you: in this case, a happy-face from the Seventies counterculture.

Day after day, at this time, it's the full yellow icon: you click the face to open a text box, and the unwinding proceeds. Some days, the face is grey, occluded: if you're feeling insecure, you have recourse to the mobile. But even then, it's best to text first and talk second, punching out the apposite words. After an agonising wait - surprise, surprise - all's well that ends well.And the point of this confession of my cyberhabits? Simply that Love, Virtually demands just as much care, calibration and bravery as Love, Actually. In the words that Sam Cooke would undoubtedly be singing, had his spurned lover's bullets missed their mark: Cupid, reboot your hard drive.Pat Kane's book 'The Play Ethic' is due from Macmillan in June. The author of this accomplished d?t novel was born in (deep breath) 1980, is a rising star on the comedy circuit, nominated for stand-up awards and now developing a BBC television programme. Wisely, Mark Watson hasn't written an autobiographical book: with commendable ambition, he has chosen a middle-aged man, in the grip of his own crisis, as the narrator of Bullet Points.

These eavesdrop on events as varied as Edward VII's coronation and lunch parties with the PMs of the day. Using them as his primary source, Newsome recreates a highly complex man for whom the description "repressed homosexual" scarcely does justice.7 QUEEN VICTORIA By Lytton Strachey (Chatto & Windus, 1921)The follow-up to his iconoclastic Eminent Victorians (1918), Strachey's short appreciation of her late Imperial Majesty is a more subtle and arguably more rewarding work. Justice is done - Prince Albert, in particular, is given his due - and fun is had at the expense of political attendants, but you end up feeling that Strachey found his subject more agreeable than he had at first imagined. Contains one of the most moving final paragraphs ever written.8 THE LAST ENGLISHMAN: THE LIFE OF J L CARR By Byron Rogers (Aurum Press, 2003)Known as the author of the Booker-shortlisted novel A Month in the Country, J L Carr (1912-94) was a luminous figure: writer, small publisher, church restorer and author of the classic Dictionary of Extraordinary English Cricketers And that was all after leaving teaching at 55. It's hard to get any sense of him as a man; neither his conscious crises nor his unconscious motivations seem truly felt. The narrowness of his observations means that Chicago, where he lives, never acquires grip.

Peter's East Anglian childhood is more confidently evoked, but perhaps this objection is off the point: Bullet Points is mostly fiction as medical case-history. The intention could be that Peter is so blinkered he never looks around, but it's a limitation of voice that becomes frustrating. Another reading could suggest that Peter, far from living in Chicago, has never set foot there.The novel becomes a kind of guessing game that, although lacking the genuine anguish of a case like Peter's, travels towards a gratifying conclusion. This is a clever and unusual book, and Watson is to be commended for the care with which he has constructed the puzzle.The reviewer's novel 'The New Girl' is published by Picador.