You've done this: you've gone to a website because you fancied something there and the site required you to register before you get it. So you haver a bit but eventually figure that you want it enough that it's worth handing over your email address.

No more.

If I choose to give Tesco, say, my email address then what I'll do instead is claim that it is tesco@williamgallagher.com. You know how they always send you an email asking you to confirm your address? It works. I get that and I can reply.

Is there a need to sign in to NASA? Then I'd be nasa@williamgallagher.com. You can see a pattern here. And yes, it's because I own my domain name williamgallagher.com and yes, I can write anything. And yes, I have told a site that my address is bollocks@williamgallagher.com.

And yes, if you emailed bollocks@williamgallagher.com I would get it.

Except.

I wouldn't, actually. Anything at all @williamgallagher.com is routed out to my real email until it causes a problem. If I signed up for a shop with something like supermarket@williamgallagher.com and then, what do you know, look at that, my spam rate booms up, I'll look at the address that spam is sent to. If all the viagra adverts are going to supermarket@williamgallagher.com then, flicks a switch, that address is gone. Send anything and everything you like, it will never get through.

And that did happen with wherever it was I registered as bollocks@williamgallagher.com. So I switched that off.

All you need is your own domain name – which is great because it also means you're not tied to @hotmail or @aol or anywhere else – and the ability to fiddle with its email settings. That'll be part of your control panel wherever good domain names are sold.

One thing against all this. I have sometimes registered with a site I was certain I'd never come back to again – and I was wrong. I suppose I should change that registered address to my real one, but I can't even remember what it is because I log in to most things through 1Password or through Safari and they both pop the login details for me.

But come on, it's fun being able to look someone in the eye and say yes, my email address is dippydippygumdrops@williamgallagher.com. Wanna make something of it?