Tag Archives: social media

Day 105

22 Replies

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.

 

Thoughts on Watching TV

14 Replies

I just spent an hour messing about with thoughts and coming to no real conclusion. At that point I thought I’d give myself a deadline of 20 minutes. In that take I have to write something and do all the tags and stuff so I can post before midnight. point.

\it’s a useful target and cuts out all the woolly thinking. What happened was that I watched a TV programme about social media. It was a poor programme in many respects but did give me a few things to think about, including the mixed messages being sent by a presenter who drifted from one thing to another without any real thread to it. I cancelled Facebook years ago and felt better for it. I don’t use Twitter, except to announce new posts, though I’ve had  a message coming up recently that indicates that might not be happening. I’m not really bothered and haven’t followed it up. WP, I regard as writing practice rather than social media, and that’s my lot.

The most interesting bits were the rage/jealously segments. It seems that one Tik-Tok user had his car and house burned by people who took exception to his posts. I really can’tb understand why he became so popular, but I definitely don’t understand why someone would set fire to his car. I think it’s all down to the modern desire for fairness and equality. It breeds envy. Instead of looking at a successful person and finding out how they made their success, people just moan that it’s unfair.

Life, as I was always told, is unfair. But it’s also what you make it, and if you want to make it a place of misery and envy then you are free to make that choice. It’s just that no matter how bad my life becomes, I’d rather use my time to enjoy it than moan that other people have been luckier than me, and don’t deserve their success. Strangely, the people who moan most also seem to be the ones with the least talent and work ethic. I wonder if there could be a link . . .

I’m now going to use the title of this post for a poem. Looks like I’m back in the game.

 

A Rant at Modern Life

21 Replies

I’ve just been watching the news. It seems that “news” is a report of Dame Judy Dench eating 100 Maltesers as part of the Captain Tom 100 Challenge, a report from a woman who nearly died of Covid, but didn’t, and a report about a Covid memorial at St Paul’s Cathedral.

None of that, to me is news. It’s entertainment or current affairs.

Sport pulling out of social media is news, though I’m cynical about how it will work out. And someone drowning in the Thames whilst attempting to save a woman who fell in, is also news. It’s very selective news though, with a narrow focus on the man who drowned, and not on the man who also jumped in but didn’t drown.

There are plenty of options for rewarding this sort of bravery, including medals of the Royal Humane Society. In 1882 the Assistant Manager of London’s Lyceum Theatre dived into the Thames in an attempt to save a man from drowning. He was given the bronze medal of the society, though he’s better known for something else. He wrote Dracula.

Sorry if I seem a little cynical at the moment but I’ve just been dealing with some paperwork relating to my dad’s probate. I have just seen a life reduced to numbers and his wife of  62 years described as a tenant in common. As the icing on the cake there is a monitoring form at the end, asking if I, amongst other things, am black or white and whether I consider myself to be disabled. There are questions about gender too. I didn’t understand them.

It’s a waste of time effort and trees. Even if you do find that Death is racist, homophobic and doesn’t like cripples, what are you going to do about it?

And who thought it was appropriate to attach the questionnaire to the probate papers?

My Life as an Inaction Hero

12 Replies

I had a lazy day today, to rest after my hard day packing parcels yesterday. Did I really work six days a week at one time? Or even five? I feel like a friend of mine who,,years ago, detailed his activities shortly after retiring and said plaintively “It’s a good thing I’m retired, or I’d never be able to fit it all in.”

He had, of course, made two cardinal errors – said “yes” when asked to go on a committee and allowed his wife to get involved with planning his day.  Wives are wonderful things, but they are, unfortunately, not to be trusted with a man’s time. That’s why I intend having a shed or workshop when I retire. Ideally a shed with a moat and drawbridge. That way I will be able to call my time my own and find things even years after putting them down.

I’m actually thinking of making that my First Rule of Lethargy – an object which is at rest will stay at rest unless it is acted on by a wife, or the kettle is out of reach.

This is the first proper saturday I’ve had off for a while,a nd I was able to devote the middle portion of my day to watching Sharpe and the bits at either end to eating. Murder She Wrote served to fil lthat awkward afternoon gap. We are now about to eat vegetable stew and watch some quiz programmes.

I see on the news that Donald Trump is threatening to start a new social media platform and that the Queen and prince Philip have both had their Covid vaccinations. That’s nice to know, as we really need a new social media platform, and it brings my vaccination date nearer.

To be honest, neither really affects me as much as the fact that we are nearing the end of the Christmas biscuits and are likely to be reduced to eating Digestives by then end of the week. It’s just that I am sometimess eixzed by the need to write for posterity.

An Addiction to WordPress

40 Replies

Just over five years ago  I wandered into WordPress with the intention of practising my writing, gaining some publicity for the Quercus Community group and learning a bit more about Social Media.

As things turned out, I did learn to write faster, even if the accuracy and quality is a bit uneven. The group closed. I’ll say no more about that or I will find myself dwelling on how we were stabbed in the back by a hypocrite. I realised, after a while, that I wasn’t meant for Social Media. If they had Anti-Social Media I am your man.

I first learned there was more to WP than just writing about myself when I read a few posts. One that stuck in my mind was by some doddery old geezer in Hampshire. He pottered about, took photos and ended all his blogs with a description of what he had for tea and what he drank with it.

Five years later I’m addicted to his blog. Whether this is because it’s deceptively beguiling, or whether it’s because I’ve turned into a doddery old git is difficult to say.

His legions of followers argue for the former, but a quick look in the mirror also suggests the latter is not far from the truth.

And that sums up my WordPress experience – gentle addiction. I have really missed the reading and writing and companionship over the last week while I have been condemned to cyber-limbo. This applies to all of you who haven’t been mentioned too.

This post is a bit gushing and upbeat for my taste, which I blame on reading all these Pollyanna-style American blog posts. Don’t think it’s going to be repeated. I missed you all. I’ve admitted it. And I don’t think we need to mention it again.

I am now going to visit the blog of a man whom I regard as my spiritual mentor. Thanks to him I now take my porridge with salt and water and have learned more about choral singing than I am ever likely to need, bearing in mind that I have a voice that grates like the creaking of hinges on a crypt door.

Those of you who require an antidote to the modern fashion for inappropriate cheerfulness could do worse than join me.

I’m off to find some photos now, probably the ones of sunrise which I unwillingly took a couple of days ago when, due to the stupidity of an auctioneer, I had to go to the Sorting Office to pick up a parcel.

Sunrise – Arnold, Notts
Sunrise – Wilford, Notts
Sunrise – Arnold, Notts