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It's 11am on a Saturday morning, I'm sitting in my living room and a woman with a small crown and a large axe is standing next to me as I attempt to complete a report for the World Service's Newshour programme. Fortunately my real life (if not my broadcasting career) was never actually in danger - I was reporting form the virtual online world "Second Life". You can listen to the whole thing here ( link valid till Oct 15th I think). It's a shame the rather atmospheric wind noises in Second Life didn't really come out over the Skype connection, particularly the bit were someone suddently started making strange whooping noises just as I tried to answer a question.

Oddly the night before I had a real-life chat with "Babbage Linden", one of the UK based Second Life staffers. We'll run that interview probably the week after next. I'm still not quite comfortable in Second Life, but people are certainly doing some really with some very worthwhile . The economics of the place is also worth several Phd's on its own: