For seven glorious minutes, Gloria Stynham of The Silverton Bugle had an empty email inbox yesterday.

The milestone was reached at 11.56 in the morning, the culmination of hours of dedicated clearing time.

“It was an incredible feeling,” said Stynham, whose inbox has since ballooned to a more natural size of 134. “Memories are made of moments like that.”

Perhaps most incredibly of all, Stynham not only cleared her inbox but did so in a meticulous and professional way, reading through every one of them and responding where needed.

The achievement has had no clear positive impact on her work. If anything, the time required to do it has been denied more important projects and caused irreparable harm to the week’s edition.