All of a dither.

Union North's website at www.unionnorth.co.uk is exactly the kind of site likely to put off prospective clients. Not being a client I think I loved it. It starts off with a black screen, the practice name and an invitation to enter. You click and up comes the name again. But when you grumpily try to click again, the individual letters fly around avoiding your arrowhead. Call me childish but I did this grinning maniacally for about five minutes before nailing the little flashing square dot, which had been there all the time. It was the end of a hard day. Clicking on it produced a dither of pixel-sized dots that resolved into a six-by-six grid with tiny names under each. This is a Flash site, so if you click anywhere neutral with the right button and click again on Show All (not Zoom In) the text becomes readable. Hover over the right-hand three columns and some of the right-hand dots develop shimmering outline boxes. Go to the left and it's circles on the right-hand side. I think this is a way of indexing any one project under a number of headings. But you have to have a steady and fast hand and a good memory because once you have clicked on, say, 'Regeneration' over on the left, a dozen named dots are circled on the right. But when you move your cursor over in the direction of one of these, the circles disappear and the half you have left has suddenly developed squares relating to the nearest dot to your cursor. Confusing. Probably useless. But hey, fun. One thing though, because it doesn't seem to have an exit button, you have to click on the x at the top right of the Windows desktop. You leave--but into a frozen browser and you have to make a report to Microsoft Central about it. Sutherland Lyall is at [e-mail]