---
title: "Limits of the Web in 2004"
date: 2004-06-14
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2004"
    url: "/tag/2004.md"
---

# Limits of the Web in 2004

When I was a very young child, perhaps 5 or 6, I wrote a poem that got published in The Timaru Herald newspaper. My first published writing.

I think I may’ve dreamed recently that I’d found a copy of it on the Web. I can’t recall (I’m not good at remembering dreams). Or maybe I saw the newspaper cutout not long ago, but I’ve since forgotten about it.

So tonight I tried to search for it online. However even though the Timaru Herald has archives dating back to [June 1864](https://web.archive.org/web/20050210170439/http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/data/THD/), sadly my early poetic output is not on the Web. I’m hopeful that my parents kept the cutout. Right now it’d be all yellowy and dog-eared, maybe trapped inside an old photo album…

Here’s what I think the poem was, accounting for fading memory:

There once was a spider Fishing on the deck The spider dropped its fishing rod And shouted out “Aw heck!”

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/001951.php))*