‘It started as soon as our little Florence was born,’ said proud mother Patience Kodjo, a resident of Sokodé in central Togo. ‘I didn’t even know the town hospital had a computer, but suddenly a doctor appeared and told the midwife there was a pop-up he couldn’t get rid of. When we saw it was offering a free prize for the seven billionth human, we realised it must be for Florence. I’d wondered if we might get some kind of memento to mark the occasion, but I imagined a more personal ceremony than clicking on a link to claim it.’

Hospital staff were initially reluctant to click on the pop-up due to an unfortunate incident earlier in the year when they’d lost a lot of money trying to secure the transfer of funds for much-needed medical equipment from the Nigerian royal family. ‘Each time they tried to close the pop-up it just re-appeared again,’ said Emmanuel Kodjo, Florence’s father. ‘Eventually I persuaded them to click on the link and it turns out Florence is guaranteed either a Playstation 3 or an iPad 2. None of us have any idea what those things are, but I’m hoping we can trade them for a goat.’

Emmanuel is now saving his next two months’ wages from the cocoa plantation where he works in order to call a premium-rate international number to claim his daughter’s prize. ‘I’ve even opened a bank account because the webpage told me to have my details to hand when I call.’

Although things are looking rosy for Florence and her family, the same can’t be said for the computer in Sokodé hospital which hasn’t been working since staff clicked on the pop-up. ‘They think it’s got a virus,’ said Emmanuel. ‘But then Florence left the hospital with Yellow Fever, so they can’t really complain.’

The latest version of the world’s most popular operating system will see desktop functions cut back slightly, with only two available backgrounds, the famed ‘blue screen of death’ and the classic Microsoft ’404 not found’. The unexpected screen-freeze for which Microsoft has become synonymous has been upgraded to standard GMT timings, with fixed point freezing on the quarter hour and a full system lock out every sixty minutes.

With no further need for porn site exploring, the casual browser has been catered for with pre-installed software ‘wankfinder.sys32′ which asks how much time you have alone, before finding the appropriate clip in a microsecond. The traditional enthusiastic dog with the wagging tail is replaced by an animated right hand. Any downloaded pornography from this application will now automatically be stored in a folder called DAD’S-PORN-KEPT-HERE on the desktop, to make it harder for spouses and children to locate.

When questioned during the launch Microsoft CEO Bill Gates was visibly proud of the overall effectiveness of the new operating system; ‘By supplying all of the code already screwed up, Microsoft has cleverly outflanked all those hackers out there.’ As anticipated, Internet Explorer is not an option with Windows 7, with industry-wide polls over the past four years revealing 99.9% of users were already using Mozilla. However, Windows 7 will offer a Firefox (Virus Added Edition) plug-in as a shortcut on the desktop.

‘Best of all we have made security issues much simpler,’ added Gates. ‘Now all your passwords and security details are stored in a single text document which is made available on all the peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.’ The Serious Fraud Office said that they did not anticipate a significant rise in identity theft; ‘The likelihood of two computers using Windows both working at the same time remains slim.’

DroleNoel with rickwestwell and jp1885