Last week’s Westmorland Gazette cartoon was produced remotely. By that I don’t mean I have a robot slave in editorial which does my bidding - although a few colleagues have cruelly suggested that the coffee vending machine can draw better than me. No, on this occasion I was in London and submitted the cartoon by email.

Today this sort of thing is commonplace. Ten years ago it felt cutting edge. To date, the greatest distance the Gazette cartoon has travelled is from Cape Town. It was arranged via an international cartoonists’ forum in the States. As soon as I arrived in the city, a South African cartoonist met me from the train and whisked me off to his studio where I emailed the Gazette, got the front page stories and set about submitting ideas. Outside it was 28 degrees, the clouds were rolling over Table Mountain and a gunshot sounded out as an armed mugging took place in the street. “We’re not in Cumbria anymore, Toto,” I thought, as I grappled with jokes about Kendal’s one-way system.

The same forum came to my aid last week during US election day. Desperate for local atmosphere, I chatted back and forth about how polling was going, what it was like on the ground, how they all felt. Even in South Lakes it is sometimes possible to feel close to the centre of world events. One cartoonist, Stacy Curtis, revealed that he was off to the Obama rally in Gates Park, Chicago. A few hours later, he had posted superb sketches on his blog.

What I love about the interweb isn’t the downloads, the movies or the online shopping, it’s the chance to build community. To show how, wherever you are on the planet, we’re really all pretty much the same. Political and religious differences, race, nationality - none of it really matters.

One of my favourite websites is a ridiculous little project which spans the globe. In 2003, Matt Harding, an ex-computer games programmer, set out to backpack around the world. Somewhere on his journey, he got the idea of filming himself dancing - badly - in front of a variety of exotic locations. Once home, he strung the bits of film together and created a YouTube video which spread rapidly around the internet. You will fall into one of two categories when viewing this site; either you will find it hilarious … or you won’t see the point, in which case I don’t want to know you.

It is impossible to define what is so funny about Matt dancing his way across the planet. It’s not the dancing itself, although that is pretty amusing, along the lines of Strictly Come Dad at the Disco. It’s not necessarily the locations - which include an impenetrable forest, a hanging boulder and zero-gee. What is easier to pinpoint is the sense of shared fun; how all these places and all these people can be brought together by one man, one video camera and a deranged idea. It is a ridiculous website. Pointless. Completely bonkers. But whenever I’m lonely, fed up, or in a distant location stuck for an idea for this week’s cartoon, I log on and feel uplifted. Give it a go - but if you don’t like it, don’t bother telling me.

By the way, it’s amazing what you find on YouTube. I recently discovered myself there … but that’s for another blog.

Colin Shelbourn