From time to time you'll read that some daft-as-a-brush cyber-type has decided to live in a single room, surviving on what they can order from the internet, using it as their sole source of entertainment and information, even relying on it as a friend and confidante. It's a favourite theme of science fiction too, the wired individual, physically isolated from the real world, but firmly plugged into the electronic one.

No one suggests this is a healthy way to live, but there's no doubt that increasingly, the internet is taking its place as just another strand in our lives like TV or sport or eating out or socialising, and if you analysed what a typical person can get up to in a day online, you might be surprised. Here's our - fictional, naturally - diary of a net user.

8am: As you blearily recall, everything was going rather well last night until you were taken suddenly drunk, resulting in this, the grandfather of all hangovers.

Help is but a modem away, however, and although many sites such as www.blurofinsanity.com/hangover.html are useless this morning, because they advocate prevention, however, www.hangoverstopper.com has a natural carbon-based cure which may be useful in the future.

8.15am: Sadly, you still need to get to work so a quick consultation with www.pti.org.uk (that's the UK Public Transport Information service) is in order. Up pops up a clickable map of the country; choose London for example, and you'll end up at www.londontransport.co.uk with links through to buses, the DLR, Victoria station, taxis and tubes.

Those in a rural idyll are also surprisingly well served; click Anglesey for example, and you can find out when the number 53 bus leaves for Beaumaris (www.anglesey.gov.uk). Alternatively, www.rail.co.uk has links to timetables, and 'real-time' information from three train operators.

10.30am: You've made it to work, kept down the first coffee and although earlier on your head felt like a huge hamburger, now - amazingly - your stomach feels like one, too. But where's the nearest McDonald's and when does it stop serving pointless breakfasts and start pitching out quarter-pounders with everything on them?

Go to www.mcdonalds.co.uk and you'll find everything but this key fact, the highlight being the idiot-proof restaurant locator which will not only show the nearest McDonald's to your street and postcode on a map, but also tell you how to drive there.

Elsewhere you can vote for your favourite food, download ingredients' lists, run the interactive nutrition counter (wow, this is nearly fibre-free!) and enjoy a website so brilliant that by the time you remember what you were looking for, they'll have stopped serving breakfast anyway.

As an interesting point of comparison, try visiting the Burger King site at www.burgerking.co.uk, where the authors assume you'd rather download a hamburger screensaver than find a restaurant where you can eat a real one.

11.30am: Here comes trouble. Someone's decided to ask you a business-related question. Obviously you couldn't have anticipated what this was going to be - nevertheless, after visiting www.vnunet.com/news, of course, a link to the NewsNow business newsfeed (www.newsnow.co.uk) will provide access to general business news updated every few minutes.

For company information try www.corporateinformation.com, which has details of more than 350,000 companies (including stock performance and overall financial analysis). For the direct approach, www.companyinformation.co.uk offers an on-the-spot credit check on UK companies for £15 a pop.

The website www.parcel2go.com pitches itself as the UK's most cost-effective parcel service (a knowledge of such things is useful for middle managers who want to demonstrate they still know the price of a pint of milk), while www.insurancenow.co.uk offers instant online insurance quotes. Finally for all-important world news, skip CNN, which won't have any, and go to the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/default.stm).

Midday: After all that excitement you decide to check your horoscope and see what the rest of the day has in store. Excite (www.excite.co.uk) has loads of these, including the Love-O-Meter, Crystal Ball (Q: 'Will I get a snog this New Year's Eve?' A: 'Darn Right!') and a daily horoscope. Then, if your luck is in, give it substance by wandering over to William Hill (www.ws1.willhill.com) and having a flutter.

12.30pm: Your horse comes in last so in a fit of self-loathing you resolve to join a gym. At www.gymuser.co.uk you can find the 25 gyms nearest your postcode and print out a map of how to get there (in fact it's just like McDonald's except you're losing fat).

Remembering that it's a bad idea to jump straight in, you consult www.netfit.co.uk/tech3.htm which has loads of useful tips for beginners. For a discussion of how to use individual gym contraptions without looking a prat or doing yourself a nasty, muscle over to www.fitnesslink.com/virtualgym.

1pm: With the personal fitness fad already fading you make yourself feel better temporarily by taking an interest in professional sports instead.

No, not more gambling, but a trip to the official Olympics site at www.olympics.com/eng/ or the US-flavoured, but still slick Fox site at www.foxsports.com where those with a fat office internet pipe will enjoy video footage of triumphant athletes. Those with a standard modem would be better off listening to BBC 5 Live at www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/ or would be if the Olympic Committee hadn't forbidden the use of the live audio stream until the Games are over. Way to go!

2.30pm: The dreaded afternoon meeting beckons. Bone up on strategies at www.moore-moore.com/tips.html - here you can steal Laurie Moore-Moore's ideas without having to buy any of her books.

Elsewhere, www.officepolitics.co.uk gives a good and occasionally funny (which is a shame since it's all supposed to be funny) overview of office life and has a section on meetings. But the best tonic - and best way to catch out whoever's holding the meeting - is to check out the Seven Sins of Deadly Meetings at www.fastcompany.com.

4pm: During a lull, the office decides to play a trivia game. Cheat by going first to www.jayp.net/trivia/index.htm where samples include 'Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates' and 'The English word with the most consonants in a row is latchstring'. Or go to Trivial Trivia (www.oz-online.net/pedigre/Humor_pages/TrivialTrivia.htm) where such gems as 'Killer whales kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode'.

Personal pages have a nice line in cachet-winning junk too, and at www.lymanfamily.org you'll discover that Coca-Cola was originally green. Alternatively, claim your specialist subject is medicine and baffle them all courtesy of www.brazosport.cc.tx.us/~hpekar/nate/facts/factsmain.htm#Facts where there's an operating theatre full of interesting nonsense about medicine.

4.45pm: With things winding down for the day, check the weather at the old faithful www.bbc.co.uk/weather/satellite.shtml where satellite pictures will show you whether this evening's softball game is a good idea; check for sunset times too.

Other top weather sites include www.weather.org.uk and the deeply technical http://www.westwind.ch/ where you'll find links to 6000 weather-related European sites. Given that the weather's so dodgy this time of year, you cancel the game and make up for it with a bit of last-minute online action (deathmatch Quake anyone? OK, how about Backgammon?) at www.gamecenter.com/Play/.

Fatally, you impress the new work experience person so much with your calculated blood lust and smooth mouse moves (and that's just in Backgammon) that they agree to your invitation to dinner than night. Given that you can't cook this is even more of a gamble than your earlier visit to William Hill, but www.leapingsalmon.com saves the day - you order all the ingredients for Melanzane and Taleggio Ravioli in a Butter and Pine Kernel Sauce online and they're delivered same day to London (if you order before 5pm). As usual, those of us who live outside the capital will just have to stall a bit.