Tag Archives: Facebook

2,571?

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The title is the number of subscribers WP tells me I have. I once went through the list and deleted a lot, but these days I don’t have the time. Quite clearly it is a fiction and at least 2,550 of them aren’t pulling their weight. Such is life on WP. Most of them, I seem to remember from checking last time, only visit once.

Julia, on the other hand, just went to the shops and it took her ages because she kept bumping into people she knows. We’ve only been here a year, how does this happen? She’s a lot more sociable than I am, and a a lot more friendly, but it still seems like a lot of new friends.  I could go to the shops in Sherwood, where I lived for nearly 40 years , and maybe nod to a couple of people. At least you know every one of those people actually exists.

Then, when I’d finished digesting this, I went to find Laurie Graves on Facebook. She’s retiring from WP. You can get friends on Facebook. I did once, when I first signed up for it, but then I realised how pointless it was. Viewed as statistics they are meaningless and viewed as actual friends they are pointless. If I ever met most of them we wouldn’t be friends in real life. At least, with the conversations we have on WP I can be fairly sure that everyone I think of as a friend on WP would be reasonably pleasant.

A decorative touch

One entry I found, whilst trying how to become a friend of Laurie, has been suggested as a “friend” by Facebook. It’s one of the bleakest things I’ve ever seen, and probably a pointer to the direction society is taking as we all sit by our keyboards. I actually know him in real life and we have probably been put together via the Numismatic Society. I have changed his name, just to be on the safe side.

“Albert Bates” the entry says “has 2 friends.”

Pictures are from December 2019 when we spent Christmas in Suffolk. Except the heart-shaped one. That’s going to be used in the next newsletter of the Nene Valley Railway, in which she pretends to be Winnie the Pooh. It’s hard finding a fresh approach each month.

 

 

 

Day 105

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I just had three notifications from Facebook. One of the is a regular one telling me that I haven’t signed up to any groups. There is a reason for that, I don’t want to be in any. They take too much time. I barely have enough time to fit in all my procrastinating and displacement activity as it is. And, based on my last time with Facebook, they will be full of people I don’t want to be in a group with.

Another was from a suggested “new friend”. They aren’t new, because they cropped up last week, and they aren’t a friend as I have never met them either in RL or online. They aren’t a friend, they aren’t even an acquaintance. At best they are an irritating stranger. At worst they are a possible stalker or serial killer.

The third was as suggestion that I might like to join a comedy group. Why? I’ve shown no inclination to comedy in any of my Facebook visits. The only thing I look at is the page for the Numismatic Society, so why not suggest other Numismatic Society pages? At the risk of sounding like a crusty old fossil, the picture suggests that the comedy will be modern, and most modern comedy doesn’t make me laugh.

This is why I left Facebook last time, and why I never promoted the blog or the farm on Facebook. Twitter is better, but even that is improved by not reading it. The only decent social media I see is WP and even then I have concerns about it.

 

A Few More Thought on Numbers

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After yesterday’s discussion on numbers I had a look through the list of people I follow. I’m surprised by the number of them that haven’t posted for a year or more. I’m also surprised by how few of them I actually remember.

A quick survey of 18 people I follow indicates that a third of them haven’t posted for a year or more and quite a few of the others haven’t posted for over a month.

The sample is from the earlier days of my WP use, but if you allow for this it’s still likely that I’m following several hundred people who no longer exist as bloggers.

As for the ones I don’t remember, it’s unlikely they remember me either, so they can probably go too.

I first came across this false friend syndrome on Facebook. I joined because the Nottingham RFC U16s were touring in Canada and the idea was for them to communicate with the parents via Facebook. In fact they didn’t post much as they had better things to do. I stayed as a member for a while but the inane communications and spurious friends irritated me so much that I deregistered and have never gone back.

If anyone has recently started following me, please don’t think any of this is aimed at you, it isn’t. Unless you are a site with a business name in your title. I tend not to reciprocate when business sites follow me as I don’t believe they are following me for my content, just to build up followers.

It’s a funny old world.

In the next post I hope to be more interesting, so keep an eye open for it.

One final comment – having tried to find a suitable photo for the top of the post I find the old problems have returned. It looks like it’s only the new editor that will allow me full access to my photographs.

Bah!

TGIF

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First job of the day was to wake up. I did not achieve total success in carrying out this task. My mistake had been uttering those immortal words “I’ll just have another few minutes.” I set my new phone to give me 15 more minutes and, 25 minutes after it went off, was found cuddling it affectionately to my bosom.

Julia soon put a stop to that.

We visited the Mencap garden next and I had a look at the progress made during the week. Julia is aiming to build some interest amongst group members and to tidy up a bit. It’s never going to be immaculate, and that isn’t the intention, but she is aiming to make the garden more productive and define the wildlife areas more clearly. We know from bitter experience that visitors are all to keen to complain about weeds, and that this always causes problems.

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Then, after coffee and cake (the remains of our stash from Mrs Botham) it was time to go home. It also seemed a good time to take Julia’s new Facebook profile photo.  She always looks happier after cake.

I realise that cake for breakfast is probably frowned on by Big NHS Brother but what harm can a bit of cake do? The sultanas alone must be worth one of my five a day, and if they really want us to go to ten a day I’m going to struggle without cake.

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Great job, cake, wonderful husband – you just have to smile

From home, it was off to the anticoagulant clinic again. I won’t bore you will the details, but after struggling to get my blood to respond to anticoagulants they are now struggling to stop it responding. I let them flap for a bit, but as stress is a killer I decided not to worry about it.

Final job of the morning is checking out a few blogs and writing my first post of the day. That is now done, and after loading a few pictures I will be doing my first job of the afternoon, which is eating lunch. The other plans are collect prescription, shop for evening meal, visit duck pond, eat ice cream and watch Pointless.

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In the evening I shall coerce Number One son into washing up, collect Number Two son from the station, cook tea, dispense unwanted fatherly advice on a variety of subjects, and complain that nobody speaks clearly these days. They will counter this final assertion by pointing to hearing aid adverts on the TV, though I may well be asleep before any come on.