BBC Radio 6’s Steve Lamacq asked listeners for memories of their 1990s email addresses. One listener, a Kate Bush fan said her Address had included, “itsmecathy, from Kate Bush’s song Wuthering Heights. It had led people to mistakenly assume her own name was Cathy, when it was Clare.

Clare was lucky to be able to choose her own address. Going online in February 1997, paying a monthly subscription to a service provider, a company in the United States, the address was the easily forgettable [email protected]. There was some provision …