My wife is generally tolerant of my being a gadget geek. She feels that if I am going to be passionate and obsessed about something, at least it’s with electronics, and not some other woman.

But she does hate one side effect of my love affair with technology, and that’s the wires. Behind the TV lies a tangled maze of red, yellow and black cords connecting it to various gaming consoles, a receiver, speakers, DVD. Vacuuming is an Olympic sport, and the wires do nothing for what she calls her “Country-Victorian” look. It doesn’t help that the wires make a lovely nest for dust bunnies, or that our toddler son loves “pulling the pretty strings”.

So when I said I was getting into WiFi, she shot me a terrified, suspicious look. What new gadget was this, where would we put it, and would it be just as ugly as everything else I brought into the house?

When I told her that WiFi meant we could connect to the Internet at any time, with no wires, she looked ecstatic. No wires! No mess! No ugly weird things snaking through her home, tripping over people and destroying her carefully created Martha Stewart aesthetic. “Finally, they invent something practical,” she said, throwing a glance at my collection of “toys” and the wires connecting to them. “So when are those going wireless?”

Ah, but WiFi is a pretty good start.