The feeling of immediacy, of everything happening at the same time, and needing our constant attention, as I think I've suggested numerous (or perhaps too many) times in this column, is far from new. Just under nine years ago I devoted a column to "now", and it never mentioned the stream. That's not because I was ahead of the curve (as I've too often noted, I pride myself on being behind it) but because then, as now, I thought there was value in "wasting" time and thought that that important, but often derided, activity should be defended.