Love is in the cloud

If I were to take a minute to tell you all about the manifold benefits of the emergence of cloud computing, I'm sure I'd be preaching to the choir, dear reader.

You are, I'm well aware, a clued-up bunch of solutioneering visionary IT thought leaders who know all about the cloud-induced joys of increased flexibility, additional storage, the liberation of IT resources, reduced costs and operational excellence.

But it may shock you to hear that I'm a bit of a pleb, and all this techie gubbins and high-end business speak has left me cold. And so I've remained one of the dwindling band of cloud sceptics; until today, that is!

News has reached me of a practical application for the cloud that has finally, finally blown my mind just a little bit. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: the Cloud Girlfriend.

Internet entrepreneurs are soon to launch a service allowing Facebook users to create their ideal ladyfriend to their own specifications. After her profile has been created, real people will apparently then be employed to pretend to be the made-up woman through doting wall posts and the occasional poke.

The goal is to convince the fella's friends list, and the internet at large, that our man is not a sorry, unkempt specimen with questionable hygiene and hideous social skills, but rather, in fact, a love machine, who enjoys "a public long-distance relationship" with a bang tidy missus.

Well, I can't see how this could be anything other than utterly, utterly foolproof - not that I'm suggesting any fools would involve themselves in such a devilishly brilliant scheme. The site advises lovesick chaps to act quickly or miss their chance.

"Due to high demand we are only able to accommodate a limited number of users to the site," it says. "Register early to get in line."

They don't know the half of it - our Gordon's already put his name down for a nurse, a gymnast, a glamour model and a set of Swedish twins.