Economic pragmatism would be the main reason. If I have a dispute with a client having an office in the UK - not that t his ever happens, of course! - I can go to court in the UK and in the first instance get my case heard locally and in the second instance have the further option of sending the bailiffs round when the defaulter simply ignores any court judgment against them.

If the client is based abroad, then the chances of bringing them to book are remote and improbable if they exist at all. Being a one-man band, I don't deal in the sort of figures that make extradition a realistic proposition, and suggestions of invasion or all-out war evaporate when I wake up. Nor, reverting to pragmatism again, is it feasible to sue them locally and, while the local public bar would no doubt be packed with eager volunteers, it's an expensive effort sending the boys round.

So from the point of view of resorting to legal redress, sticking to UK based clients makes sense.

It can be embarrassing, though, working in the UK and trying to explain our archaic and exploitative banking system. Clients from more enlightened countries (read; anywhere else on the planet) find it hard to believe that the money they sent by bank transfer a week or so ago has yet to emerge from that mysterious bourne where money temporarily vanishes to when it enters the British banking system and appear in my account. "Certainly we paid it", they indignantly assert in response to my timid query about, er, actual payment for my services. I feel like an idiot trying to explain that despite the interim period I still haven't seen hide not hair of any remittance.

I've known my bank to indignantly deny any knowledge of any monies being in the system the very day before it appears in my account, right up till closing time. I've logged into my online account the next morning and there the money is, in some cases to my intense relief. Paypal money can be transferred between international accounts in a matter of moments, so how can the banks possibly justify not operating at the same speed? My guess would be that they can't justify it but a succession of supine governments allows them to get away with this, bad for all other business though it is.

This regularly presents me with a dilemma - has the client paid me for the work already carried out or not? Should I do more work for them effectively on their say so - and remember, this is likely to be someone I've never met or spoken to even on the telephone, that's the nature of the business, you communicate by email - or do I do work instead for a known and reliable client who lives, relatively speaking, just up the road? Obviously, I have to do work for the known client as I can't live on assurances, which in some cases can mightily displease those whose patronage I would dearly love in order to be able to expand my business. Rosy visions of future prosperity have been known to gloomily recede under these circumstances.

So there's good and there's bad aspects to practicing search engine optimisation in the UK.