But now the hopes, dreams, fears, political shenanigans and sporting highs and lows of this parallel life are the first thing I check every morning.

In January I renewed the Google Alerts on my work computer. For those lucky enough not to spend most of their existence in front of one, I'll explain.

I give words to the massive internet search engine Google – in this case "Suffolk" and "Sudbury". Every time it finds these words in a news story or blog anywhere in the world it tells me by email.

One click on the link supplied and I'm reading whatever news story it is.

Most of the Sudbury links are to our own website. Some Suffolk stories are from our esteemed rivals and occasionally tell us something we didn't know.

But there's a whole batch that land about midnight from Sudbury, Canada, and Suffolk, Virginia, USA.

At first I told myself I really must refine the search in Google to weed out those from abroad. But now I'm hooked on what's going on across the pond.

This morning I've been reading the latest from Suffolk, courtesy of the Virginian Pilot newspaper.

I've also caught up with the Sudbury Wolves ice hockey team – they lost 5-3 to the Mississauga St Michael's Majors. Shame.

The ins and outs of the US primary elections as they swept through Virginia were fascinating.

But the saga is really keeping me riveted early these mornings concerns Elton John.

Sir Elton's playing a gig at the Sudbury Arena, in Ontario. He is obviously massive over there.

Within 45 minutes of the tickets going on sale, the arena's website had a million hits and 6,000 tickets were sold to 1,200 punters. Thousands missed out.

And they were spitting blood when the good old Sudbury Star revealed that before the box office opened Mayor John Rodriguez had bought 10 tickets himself – and offered 90 to fellow councillors.

So far, the good mayor has apologised and admitted it doesn't look good – but refused to hand back the tickets. I'll keep you posted.