Now there’s a thing. Surfing the web can stave off dementia, according to a report to be published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

But its alleged ability to stimulate areas of the brain controlling decision making and complex reasoning seemed to be influenced by how web-savvy the subjects were. Novices were less likely to show the same brain activation patterns until they were more experienced in surfing the web.

All very interesting ... but being of an inquiring (suspicious) mind, I always check on where the funding for such research comes from – in this case the Parvin Foundation. I have no reason to doubt that the study was properly funded and for the purest academic reasons but the said Foundation has a colourful past.

Albert Parvin was born in Chicago around the turn of the century and was of little note until he turned up as president and 30 per cent owner of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, fronted by the notorious mobster Bugsy Siegel.

On a press trip to Las Vegas in the early 1990s I was treated to a tour of Siegel’s living quarters at the Flamingo, the most intriguing feature being a variety of ingenious escape routes through concealed doors, cupboards and hidden stairways. And it worked ... until he took a trip to LA in ’47 and an assassin shot him in the eye through a window. The Flamingo was demolished shortly after our visit – sad really because it was a very evocative and tangible link to Siegel and all the other gangsters immortalised in those B-movies.

But the Parvin Foundation lives on, having survived numerous investigations into dealings with organised crime syndicates. As our new generation of ‘silver surfers’ will discover, there’s always something more stimulating on the next hyperlink.

Max Hastings poured a large jug of cold water on the hysterical enthusiasm for ‘multi-skilling’ in journalism when he delivered the James Cameron Memorial Lecture in London.

Was Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey in the audience – or the Newsquest managers who have decided they can produce papers without sub-editors? Bailey says that journalists' jobs are to become more ‘interesting’ in Birmingham once they start using ‘smartphones’ to shoot video as part of their reporting. "I think that's far more creative than simply writing 500 words for the next day's paper," she said.

Oh, really? As we all know, the really interesting video footage on local newspaper (sorry, multimedia) sites is not shot by journalists but by people who happen on fires, road smashes and other incidents. It’s of pretty poor quality but acceptable for its news or novelty value. The truth is that the rest is pretty abysmal too – ‘after the event’ coverage of incidents, lame vox pops, ‘talking heads’ in the newsroom etc.

Of more concern to me, however, is that with the demise of the written or printed word, there will soon be no reliable record of local events.

I have a particular interest in this consequence of the techno-revolution being three-quarters the way through the writing a second volume of the history of Bath rugby club, taking in the 40 years to 1995. I am fortunate in having access to my dog-eared notebooks, yellow cuttings of mine and others’ match reports and other obscure reference material.

Will such reliable, authoritative source material will be available to someone trying to undertake similar research in 30 years time? I hope so, I really do.