Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Facebook Schmacebook


I've left Facebook.

I had been toying with the idea for a while , I finally cut the ties last week.
I thought you might be interested in knowing my reasons, in no particular order.

I was spending small yet increasingly frequent amounts of time looking at the irrelevant snapshots of people I simply did not know. A few weeks ago I looked at the holiday pictures of a cousin of a friend. Somebody I have never met and will almost certainly never meet.

There's nothing wrong with aquaintances , theres nothing wrong with keeping in touch with such folk. I have a phone full of numbers I hardly use. I have countless email addresses. I'm just not sure I need to read their wisecracks about my life, nor am I sure I need to post updates about my rambling existence for them to comment on. Catch 22?

It was Oscar Wilde who went along the lines of 'spending too much time on the little things and not enough time on the important things'. I was spending too much time on little things.

Aquaintances posting pictures of the boozy teenage years. No thanks.

It's been over a week. Nobody has noticed.

A parent at school asked me to be a friend. I accepted. Nothing was ever actually said. All this happened online. That's no way to behave.

Some of the vitriol that poured out of people regarding the recent public sector strike made me wonder why I was in that room. It was not a party I wanted to attend, surrounded by people I did not like. I experience enough real and challenging relationships everyday, I don't need cyber equivalents.

I really don't want to be there.

I have a number of dear friends. I am a lucky man. Those that matter are in regular contact outside of Facebook. I hang out with a number of good people who have never been anywhere near the site.

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Town Hall


Just attended a meeting of the local council.
Me, FRD, about 200 other angry townsfolk.
We went to put our opinions across, to ask questions and to make our elected officials decidedly uncomfortable about one of their less than great ideas.

We didn't get all the answers, we found out a few new facts but we came away feeling energised to go to the next stage. At various points I had to employ the Alistair Campbell tactic of squeezing my finger to aleviate anger.

The mayor smirked and was not at his best. He came across as arrogant and dismissive. He was absolutely not enjoying this. I have to admit, we were. It was a good display of people power.

I was proud of my town.

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Schlesinger

In between books I turn to the journals of Arthur Schlesinger Jnr. These are the dates I turn to first.

1968. RFK's candidacy and assasination
1968 Humphrey v Nixon.
1980 Carter v Reagan.
2000 Gore v Bush connundrum.
1958 First meetings with the Kennedys.
1972 Nixon v McGovern.
1973 My birth (Schlesinger doesn't mention this, he's more concerned about Watergate)
1976 Carter's candidacy.
1997 Any reference to Blair's landslide in the UK.