Novices, politicians and the page 3 'stunner'...

A PC novice arrived for her first day at work and had a spot of techno-bother. After an hour, a passing IT worker asked her what was wrong. She barked back: "Well, I pressed the F1 button marked 'help' ages ago but nobody came."

Then there was the health and safety inspector who was lecturing an office worker on computer misuse when he knocked over a cup of hot chocolate, depositing the contents neatly on the screen.

And spare a thought for the programmer who turned on his machine with three new clients present only to discover his mates had downloaded a greeting which announced in a booming voice: "Hey, over here everyone, I'm looking at porn! Woo hoo! Porn! Porn over here!"

(We've seen that too. It's nearly as funny as the one which flashes the words "I'm gay!" on the screen repeatedly whilst playing some kind of claxon sound.)

And finally, there was the respectable lady who logged on to what she thought was a cookery chatroom. It was called 'The whipped cream room.' You can guess the rest.

These tales of high-tech woe came from Novatech, but we actually enjoyed their PR rep's email more than the survey itself. It began: "I enclose a press release, sorry it's unsolicited - hope it's not too frivolous. Although ... er ... it is a bit."

Thanks for the honesty, and yes, it is a bit frivolous. But there's nothing wrong with a bit of frivolity in this day and age, is there?

An IT worker has been seen out on the town with Page 3 model Jordan. His name's Ian Whitby, and if you know him let us know at editorial@silicon.com . We want to salute the man for buffing up the image of this supposedly uncool industry by dating such a graceful, natural-looking beauty.

Inevitably, it was the Sun wot broke this story. Apparently, Jordan clapped eyes on Ian in that well-known celebrity haunt, the Heath Tavern pub in Hayes, Middlesex. After she'd slapped him playfully on the backside with a bar towel, she said, coquettishly: "I'm Jordan, and you're coming to a party with me."

When we covered this story on Tuesday, one reader posted a comment accusing us of 'trashy, tabloid journalism'. Fair enough - but we don't do it all the time, and secondly, you still read the story to the end, didn't you? (To see all the feedback this provoked, see http://www.silicon.com/a44870 ).

Another reader made a much more serious allegation, however, claiming this story proved that silicon.com's new chairman had already started interfering in our editorial policy. The chairman in question is David Elstein, who joined us a week or so ago.

True, David happens to be the former chief executive of Channel 5. But he was also the head of programming at BSkyB, where he commissioned over 10,000 hours of programming a year (very few of which contained images of improbably proportioned women.) He also directed Thames Television's classic World at War series.

So I'm afraid it's not a given that you'll be getting porn on silicon.com in the near future. Our high standards will remain intact.

Jennifer Lopez's bottom is hiding a deadly secret. Yes - it's a virus. The clever new media pranksters' latest wheeze to get us to knacker our machines arrives in an email titled '"Where are you?" and the body text reads, "This is my pic in the beach!" The 17KB attachment is entitled "JENNIFERLOPEZ_NAKED.JPG.vbs"

The script destroys a range of files, and more alarmingly, attempts to wipe a computer's hard disk and flash Bios, potentially rendering the computer useless.

And watch out for the mail which looks like it has snaps of Miss World attached to it. It actually contains an attachment which in turn contains a worm, which tries to delete some Windows system files and propagates itself using Outlook address books (just like the Kournikova worm).

Fear not though: both are pretty rare. Maybe - just maybe - we've all learned not to open emails with such dodgy subject lines. Stick to late night Channel 5 for that sort of thing instead. (Sorry David. Can I keep my job please?)

For a list of the most common viruses in May, see http://www.silicon.com/a44839

South Korean outfit Samsung has bought £2.1m worth of garlic in an attempt to be number one in the East Asian mobile handset market. No, really, it has.

Samsung's move came following a plea from the South Korean government, which was trying to avoid the repetition of a trade dispute which saw China block imports of South Korean handsets for 40 days last year. China was retaliating to South Korea's own decision to triple tariffs on garlic imports.

So South Korea has tried to avert another international incident by buying 10,300 tons of garlic as a gesture of goodwill. For Samsung, it was a price worth paying to keep the trade route open to what could be the largest mobile market in the world.

Smells a bit dodgy to us.

And now into the strange world of the annual report. UK-listed companies spend £300m a year on these glossy productions - but to what purpose? Branding consultancy Corporate Edge interviewed 66 top city analysts and found that one third think misleading figures are a common fault in annual reports (and that's not a reference to Sir Iain Vallance).

Companies in the IT/telecoms sectors are the worst culprits, where 58 per cent of the analysts reported ambiguous statistics as a regular problem.

Corporate Edge gave the analysts excerpts from various chairmen's statements, minus all mentions of the companies they work for and the sectors in which they operate, and asked them a few more questions.

Over a quarter of the analysts who attempted to guess whether the company had done well or badly got it wrong.

When asked which sector a company operated in, only one third of the analysts got it right.

When asked to say exactly which company was which, many got it wildly wrong. For example, 20 per cent thought Boots' statement was from BT. Ouch.

Does this prove that: a) analysts are a bit thick b) companies are a bit rubbish at communication or c) companies do a very good job of side-stepping the truth and only saying what they think you ought to hear?

Our money's on c). Maybe money doesn't make the world go round anymore. Nor does garlic. And it certainly isn't love. Nope: it's spin.

And finally... one of our trusty reporters subscribes to the Lib Dems newsletters (just for research purposes of course). At the very same time as the UK population was deciding its future, he received an email from them. The message contained just these two words: "Connection Failure".

What were they trying to tell us?