Hanging and Influencing.

Recently I've become aware that these two words, as nouns, have become things. I don't know how they crept into everyday usage, but what the hell?

Maybe it's a muso thing, but every day I see muso type 'friends' of mine talk about what a great 'hang' they had with someone. And that someone is invariably a (slightly) famous sort, which makes me think that there's some kind of grovelling going on here.

It's that whole Facebook / Twitter narcissistic thing going on again. A desire to tell others that they spent some time with Tom Jones' guitarist or Will I Am's drummer, coupled with a need to let the famous person what a good bloke they think he is.

And influencers?? Seriously, I know it makes me sound old, which I am, but from what I can see an Influencer is someone who has a large enough following on some social media platform to influence their readers to buy something. That's it.

Said thing doesn't have to be good, said influencer often gets paid or gets a free house or something in return for their endorsement and said readers go off and spend money on a diet thing, a pair of trainers or an operation that they don't need and probably wouldn't even want were it not for one of those Kardashians telling them how good it is.

It's all gone a bit mad.

Facebook Deletions

Recently I've spotted a couple of Facebook related things that I think, for pretty obvious reasons, are a growing trend. Firstly there's the phenomenon of people leaving comments and statuses (or should that be statii?) then deleting them shortly afterwards. Secondly is when people "untag" themselves in photographs, after being tagged by someone else.

I'm one of those types who likes to watch people, to try to analyse how they behave, hopefully to use that information in my future dealings with them. Man management, something I try to do every day, is all about that, about trying to find the buttons that need to be pushed to get an individual to respond the way you want.

So I find it fascinating, often amusing, but always revealing, when someone "says" something on a FB wall and then promptly retracts it.

Now I'm no expert but I do know that the virtual world doesn't work like that. In real life, or IRL as those gamers say, we can say a sentence to someone and then retract it and, unless we've been recorded on camera or have put pen to paper, it's only our words and other people's memories that will bear testimony to the fact. I can call you an insulting name, then apologise and make friends and usually we move on and all is okay.

But the virtual world has both evidence, like google cache, backups and all that sort of malarkey, as well as a dubious and dangerous lack of emotion; a potent combination at times. Let's face it, most of us are severely limited in the way we choose to portray our actual feelings online. There are those emoticon things which you kids throw around with gay abandon and there's "LOL". That's about it.

So when someone leaves a slightly dodgy status on Facebook the rest of us rarely know what level of emotion is attached to that status. We don't know if the person is being sarcastic, deadly serious, full of pathos, or any other of the three musketeers.

I saw many pretty vitriolic comments a few weeks ago referring to the recent riots in the UK. Harsh, but fair enough I thought. If people, many in Sri Lanka, feel that way then it's up to them. I find them offensive and puerile, but that's merely my opinion. Others will, and did, disagree.

But I was amused to see a couple of these get deleted by their writers shortly after they were published. One person left a comment on my wall saying "I really feel for the millionaires trying to understand all this anger" in response to a jokey status I'd written about Boris Johnson and David Cameron flying in from their holidays.

I thought the comment was a weird one, strangely bitter but not such a big deal. The fact that the author deleted it shortly afterwards ensured that it left a far more permanent mark in my memory than if it hadn't been deleted. Ironic I know. And, being the author of the original status, I've kept the original FB email notification that I received.

I also saw one person leave a status along the lines of "serves the UK right for the damage it's done to Sri Lanka", which was removed a little later. I sniggered at this. Because if you think like that then at least have the courage of your convictions. Or is that on reflection you suddenly realised that you might upset your friends in the UK?

Some could say that when the writer deletes a FB comment it's a commendable action and they'd have a point. I've seen people remove remarks that perhaps they've thought about and deemed to be offensive or too insulting. My view though is that the bigger way to behave would be to leave the comment up but to follow it up with an apology, so others can see that you think you make an error and you accept it. Far better than deleting, in effect pretending it never happened.

As for people untagging themselves on pictures, well I risk facing a backlash here, but have only ever seen this done by women, and assume it's vanity. Us men, even vain as hell ones like me, don't care that much. I've had pictures published of myself when I've had my best and most strenuous gurning face on, usually whilst drumming, and though it does bother me slightly, never have I untagged myself.

On the flipside I've seen photographs of some women in which they've had one strand of hair out of place, one face looking a bit ugly, and they've promptly got rid of their name so no one can see who it is. It's a fact that it's only women who do that whole "don't take my picture" putting their hand in front of their face thing. Ne c'est pas?

And a happy September to you. Did you know there are only one hundred and fifteen days to go until Christmas now?

Lately In The Lankanosphere

Yes, it's back. It's been a long time since the last "lately" post in these parts, mostly because there just hasn't been much in the Lankan blogosphere that's caught my reading eye. Most of my regular reads have gone quiet or now prefer to splash out quick 140 character tweets or Facebook status updates, usually saying how much they hate Facebook's latest look, instead of sitting down and putting the effort in to write sntces + wrds tht arnt abbrvted.

Many of these former bloggers are so outrightly selfish that they concentrate on their own lives, never thinking about the enjoyment of us, their readers. And Kottu has morphed into more of an aggregator than it ever used to be. Say what you like about fixing the most read lists but there used to be a sense of interaction and community on Kottu that's no longer there. It's become like a band that have split up but get back together now and again to do a tour just for the money.

And then this week there was a shift in the Earth's vibrations, a sneeze in the Lankanosphere and my interest was captured.

First Java Jones whacked one out. Then he wrote a post. There are many blogging youngsters who are unaware of the legend that is Java Jones, of his widespread influence among many of us, not to mention that he's a cat only matched in coolness by TC. Or Huggy Bear, but he's not a cat. As a young up and coming blogger all those years ago I'd read Java's posts and wish I could write with his fluidity and sheer fucking sense of craziness. They tell me that copious amount of drug taking helps with this.

These days JJ has semi retired and spends most of his time living in the hill country. He blogs only occasionally and spends the majority of his time practicing the vuvuzela. He's one of only a handful of professional vuvuzela players in the world and is a first call session player for most of the world's top gigs. He'll deny it though, he's humble and bashful like that. You thought it was a saxaphone at the beginning of Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street didn't you? Well it's not, it's JJ, doing his vuvuzela thing.

His post is only a brief one, on his thoughts on the Wikileaks cable saga, but worth its weight in gold and it got my attention immediately. I urge you to check it out and comment demanding that he writes more.

Then Dramaqueen, usually as elusive as a huge big invisible and soundless monster who's decided to have a game of hide and seek, decided to spurt out not just one, but four posts, all in one day. Somewhere in there lurks a joke about four poster beds. I wish I was wittier, as you do probably. About me I mean, not about you. You probably think you're quite funny as it is.

The thing about DQ is that she's funny, in a slightly animal loving and sensitive way. I can imagine that an evening with her, involving drinking games and farting would be incredibly good fun, until the point that an innocent fellow cracked a joke about killing cats or breeding Christmas trees for commercial reasons. Then all hell would break loose and the farting would stop.

Grab yourself a few minutes and read her posts, my favourite is this one, the story of her first full body massage. (insert smutty joke here......) Any girl who can write about farting gets my vote every time.

DD also came out with a quickie. His blog isn't one I find easy on the eye, what with its various adverts blaring out at full volume all the time, but I'm always keen to read his perusings. The latest one is entitled the £600 haircut and it's about, well a £600 haircut. At first glance I saw the opening picture of him and assumed that he was showing us the "before the haircut" situation.

"Not a problem" I thought, a decent hairdresser should be able to tidy up that mess and do great things with it. I read on and, without giving too much away, I'll only say that I hope DD got a receipt!

Also catching the RD eye lately has been this new blog called I am. I've mentioned it before but it deserves another shout. It's an eye and earcatching combination of images and narrative, all about Sri Lanka's regional identities, told through the eyes of some highly thought provoking characters.

Dominic Sansoni himself told me the other day that it's much, much harder than it appears to put images and sound together and come up with something so special. I noticed that he was talking to his mouth was actually making the movements for the word before the one I was hearing. So it must be true then. Check it out and see for yourself.

Groundviews has gone to the shops and got itself a sexy new look for the festive season. I must admit that I can't figure out if the logo is new or if it's always been there, but I wonder if Sanjana, at the merest hint of a rights violation, rushes into a phone box, does a spin and emerges with a T shirt with the GV logo on, some extra fast slippers and his pants on the outside. Actually, as I think on it I realise that's how he was dressed last time I met him anyway. Presumably he must have been rushing to an emergency.

This post by Michael Meyler tells us Suddhas about the word "goday". I just wish I was able to pronounce it correctly without you guys looking puzzled and then laughing at me once you realise what I'm attempting to say. The esteemed Mr Meyler tells us that the nearest word to "goday" in contemporary English s the word "naff".

With the utmost respect to him I disagree. I reckon it's "chav" or "chavvy". Just ask the Auf, he'll back me on this. And talking of the Auf I've heard it on good authority that there may be a little bit of Auf love in the air. I won't tell you who's involved but let's just say that myself and Pseudorandom are currently busily writing our speeches.

The Indi.ca channel has been particularly busy of late. He points out in this post that the noughties is almost over. The fact had escaped me until I read it. Bloody hell, that's another decade gone. In my life it's fair to say that it was a pretty big one, how was it for you?

Rajaratarala, him with all the As, published this post, all about eggs, chickens and the possibility of them being imported for the festive season. Clearly it's a chicken egg situation. That's all I have to say on the matter.

That's pretty much it for now. If you want more you know where to look. It's ever so slightly awash with posts on how to make your blog look like a Christmas tree, film reviews or out of focus pictures taken on someone's mobile of Murali dancing at a party but, once you filter through all of that stuff, there are some gems to be found.

As they say in France, this isn't goodbye, just bonjour.

RD

The Election, The Blogs, The Book And The Twits

I was sitting at Heathrow airport yesterday, dropping C as she headed off to the motherland, chatting and watching the Lankans milling around waiting for the plane. One of the things we talked about was the Presidential election and our respective thoughts on it.

I've observed myself as I've observed things happening and I've been amazed and fascinated by the impact of the various internet mediums (if that's the term) and how they enabled me, and probably millions of others, to get real time information and feedback on the state of play in Sri Lanka on a minute by minute basis from all those thousands of miles away.

There were four main platforms I used, the obvious ones; Facebook, Twitter, the mainstream press (on the net) and the blogs, mostly fed to me from Kottu or the ones I link to from here.

In the days preceding the election the blogs and press were the clear winners in terms of getting across their message. For months each Sri Lankan newspaper had told us of the virtues and benefits of its chosen candidate, the majority had gone for MR but some still extolled the virtues of the retired General. In the run up each paper had time to produce nice wordy and well thought out articles, as well as a lot of rubbish.

There were also emails going around, the usual sort of "fan" thing, as well as people putting things up on Facebook, though usually copy and paste jobs or links to blogs.

The blogs did their thing too. There were people like Sittingnut and Voice In Colombo on one side, others on the opposing side and many who, to me at least, didn't really appear to be on the side of either of the main contenders, but on the side of change. By that I mean that there were people who weren't really pro SF but were going to vote for him because they'd had enough. Had I been a voter I would have bunged myself in that category.

Then, when we got to the 26th (election day) and the 27th (results day), the situation in terms of the coverage changed dramatically. The online newspapers, all except the Daily Mirror, though that's more like a forum these days anyhow, couldn't react quickly enough to act as "real time" information providers, so other platforms rose to the occasion, a word I always have trouble spelling.

Most bloggers, those that had kept their allegiance a bit quiet before at least, came out and showed their colours. There were some suprises. Indi's support for SF surprised me more than I could believe. With many of his posts seeming quite pro MR recently I'd thought that the incumbent prez had managed to seduce Indi somehow. How wrong I was.

On the 27th, as the results started to filter through and the Cinammon Lakeside got more publicity and TV footage than Yasmin Cader could ever dream of, it was Twitter that came into its own, with the blogs taking a firm second place. Facebook seemed to fade away and only acted as an outlet for people tell us that they'd written a blog post or that they had a gig the next weekend and we're all invited.

I was surprised that Facebook became a bit pedestrian in that sense but, with hindsight I probably shouldn't have been. After all it is a social networking site first and foremost. The chat thing was something I used, to talk to a few people to see what their take on this was, but that was more because it was there than anything else.

Twitter became like one of those old fashion newsroom machines, the ones that churn out all the news on ticker tape. Everyone was telling everyone what was going on, then everyone else was retweeting things in case we missed it the first time around. Tweets were coming through at a rate so fast that even Michael Schumacher a Sri Lankan bus driver would have struggled to keep pace with. It was mad but in a good way.

Those people who had a little more time somehow managed to dash off quick but informative blog posts giving better detail than possible on Twitter. Indi and Groundviews were particularly prolific in this sense and I genuinely thank them for the updates. In the middle of all of this the Daily Mirror site went down, I don't know if it was sheer volume of traffic or what, but it was as much use as a clown's outfit to a fish, one that doesn't want to work in a circus at all.

I came across some blogs that I've hardly ever read before, one of which was this Telshane one. As with all the information sources it was vital to try to apply one's own filtering mechanisms to things. People were forwarding rumours, heresay, Chinese as well as Taiwanese whispers and things they'd heard from their driver who had heard it from the cousin brother of his friend's sister.

As I read posts like this one I wondered first what they've done to the pool at the Cinnamon Lakeside, as it looks as though one end now has a sort of barrier. Secondly and rather more importantly I felt incredibly involved with the goings on. It was like an out of body experience. I was at my desk, in between meetings on a pretty busy day yet only seconds away from events as they unfolded.

So that's my take on things, or how things were revealed. It was a lesson to me, a very positive one about how the world is so small and accessible. It's not about journey times and physical distances, it's all about broadband speeds, Blackberries and HD video, Tweets and blogs.

The post of the day?

This one. It made me laugh.

Have a good weekend all.

RD

The Perfect Day With The Girls

'tis rare for me to come out with a good idea. I'm quite proud of the idea I had about Cerno's coffee table, the one about making a coffee table out of coffee table books, and my invention of the wheel was quite good too. But, all in all, I can't make any claims to fame as an ideas person.

The other day though I came up with one. During the divorce me and my ex came to an informal agreement about the arrangements for the summer holiday spell. It involves her taking them away one year and me doing the same the next year. Last year was my turn and I brought them to Lanka. It was fun, challenging, brilliant and tough, but time is a wonderful healer and I know that those were relatively early days.

This year they go away with their mother and I carry on with my normal life. My idea the other day, which might sound like nothing to you, was to take a day off work, take them out and do something that we'd all enjoy. After some negotiation we settled on going to Thorpe Park, a local amusement park, for the day. I use the work "local" there in an entirely subjective way. To you, who more than likely lives in Sri Lanka, it's not local.

My suggestion was initially met with apprehension, as I had been afraid of. I was unsure if thirteen and fifteen year old girls would be up for an amusement park with their Dad. K had been there and had a fantastic time only a few weeks ago, but that was with her friends. A is more into being cool these days, if being cool involves lounging around and watching TV, then telling all your friends on Facebook about what you've just been watching.

This scepticism and reluctance was something I dealt with rather niftily by offering up my counter plan to take them shopping in central London. They were keen on the idea and things were promising. Then, a day or two before the day I received a phone call.

"Dad, we were thinking."

"Ok K" I said guardedly.

"Well we'd actually quite like to go to Thorpe Park on Wednesday, we think it could be fun."

"Ok" I said again, as it's one of my favourite words and it seemed to suit.

And two days later, feeling like an outtake from the Inbetweeners, we were heading off to Thorpe Park. We'd agreed on a pick up time of 8.30 AM as it's summer holiday and we thought the place might be packed. So of course I got to their house at about 8.10 AM. I sometimes wish I could do something about my slightly obsessive earliness, then at other times figure that, at forty three, it's good to just accept some things about myself and go with my flow. The only time I'm late is if there's a song and a drumkit involved and I'm supposed to play.

There we were in the car. There was me, A, K and their seventeen year old cousin B, who was passing through London for a day. I was pleased to see her as it had been a year, perhaps more.

This is one of the things about divorce that many don't realise. Over the years you build relationships with your in laws, sometimes fellows even get to like them. B is a kid who I've known since the day she was born and I'm told that she looks upon me as a father figure, her own father being someone she has more or less no contact with.

I'm flattered and uncomfortable about this father figure business. You know enough about me and my life to understand that even my own kids don't think of me as a father figure (I am joking there, I think!) so for someone else to is a bit weird. But it's strange as B lives way out of London and the indisputable fact is that I have no real relationship to her by blood and now there's no connection even by marriage.

I hope it doesn't happen as I'm fond of her but, in the back of my mind, is the thought that the bond we have will fade with time and circumstance.

I digress.

Our journey was quick and accompanied by a car load of excitement and lots of Black Eyed Peas songs played really loudly. In particular the new one "I got a feeling" was on our playlist. All four of us love it and we sang, out of tune but not out of time, as I'm fussy about these things, to our hearts' content. We arrived, parked and got out of the car. The weather, at 9.00 AM, was warm and humid with that feeling that the day had nothing but more of the same to come. Things were looking good.

Even at that time in the morning there were hundreds of people there already, all queuing up ready for the place to open at 9.30 AM. I was a bit disappointed as I'd hoped we would be the only people in the world who'd come up with the cunning plan to get there early. It wasn't to be and I prepared myself to join the throng and queue up for hours on each ride.

Once we got in things looked different. The seemingly massive crowd got swallowed up by the vastness of the park within seconds and we found ourselves wandering around freely and effortlessly. I'd bought these fastrack tickets that enabled us to bypass queues on busy rides but they were hardly necessary as the queues were only a few minutes long on everything.

And we went on everything. We screamed and laughed our way through every single ride in town. A, K and B knew all the names for the rides and exactly what they were. I was clueless. I couldn't recall if Stealth was the one that made my stomach churn or my head spin dizzily, I couldn't remember if Collossus was the one that had ten 360 twists in a row or if it was the one that I saw Wembley stadium from.

All I knew was that I got to a point at which I was just laughing uncontrollably on every ride. I laughed with happiness, I laughed with fear and I laughed with joy, the joy of watching my daughters laughing and being joyful. We'd cracked jokes beforehand about divorced Dads and bonding, A had put up a jokey message on her FB about it. All of a sudden we really were doing it, kind of like the boiling frog, except it was fun.

It wasn't two kids, a late teenager and an adult out doing something, it was four kids having unadulterated fun. We got soaked on a water thing, we went from 0-80 mph in less than two seconds on another one and we dropped down what felt like a liftshaft in the dark. Then, we stuffed our faces with KFC for lunch and went and did it all again.

Afterwards we returned to RD Towers and chilled and recovered. We were all knackered and I was surprised at just how tiring all the rides actually were. I guess it's the adrenalin flow and the tension that runs through you for a minute as you grip the seat and harness with everything you've got.

Then I took them out for dinner at the local noodle bar. It was food that was much needed and was wolfed down with gusto, not to be confused with pesto.

We watched Midsomer Murders, I guessed who the murderer was and then I dropped them all home.

I slept like a baby that night. Or perhaps a log, I never really understand the difference.

I felt so pleased that the day had gone brilliantly, enjoyed by all.

Every once in a while I come up with a great idea.

Cool.

The Latest In My Life

The tattoo's itching like fuckery at the moment. It's also interesting to observe as it heals and meanders along the road towards smoothness.

The lumpiness has gone and the lines are more defined. The scabbing's beginning and I'd like nothing better than a good old scratch. Note to self, don't wear a nice crispy white polo shirt when there's a likelihood that I'll get tattoo goo on it during the day.

Tomorrow (Weds) I'm taking the girls off on a day out, along with their cousin who I'm told looks upon me as a father figure. Which is nice.

We're going to Thorpe Park. I'm excited, possibly more so than A and K. K's been busily planning which rides we're going to go on and in what order. It's quite the precision operation and I'll be picking them up at 9 AM ready for the big adventure.

I'm seriously looking forward to a bit of high octane rollercoastering. A, in her too cool for school fifteen year old way put this up as her Facebook status:

"I'm going to Thorpe Park tomorrow with my Dad. I think there'll be bonding...."

Too bloody right there will. It's my summer holiday with them.

The band has broken up for the summer. We had our last gig last week until we reconvene in September. The gig was quite high profile, with people like Mike Gatting and Chris Tarrant there and we kicked some arse and I grooved like the funky brown machine that I'd like to be.

It's nice to have a break and yet I miss the playing at the same time. Funny that isn't it? Lots of practice is in my plan. I'd get so much done if I didn't do quite so much planning though.

We've got a list of homework songs for the summer, new ones to learn and try out when we get back together. What do you think?

1. Learn to Fly - The Foos
2. Handbags and Gladrags - Stereophonics etc
3. Heroes - David Bowie
4. I'm on Fire - Kasabian
5. Stay with me - Small Faces
6. Just - Radiohead.

I'm particularly eager about 1, 3, 5 and 6. And 4 actually. There's also talk of Mr Brightside. I'm not so keen but seems that the rest of the world loves it.

In the car these days is the new Black Eye Peas offering. It's getting almost constant play and I reckon I might get bored of it very soon. In fact, I've got a feeling.

The asparagus phase has passed, quite literally, and I'm now on a pasta fad. Cooking up the stuff, with any chili based sauce is becoming quite the thing round RD Towers.

Talking of RD Towers I'm getting a hell of a lot of flies and things on the ceiling there. I think it's to do with the river and the summer, though why these things believe we have a summer here is beyond me. Twice recently I've caught myself hoovering the ceiling, very Lionel Ritchie but with an electrical appliance rather than a dance type move.

That's about it really.

Wishing you all a joyful Poya day.

RD

RD Completed The...

"Which quiz are you" quiz with the result brilliant in a compared to a quiz way.

You are the quiz that gives you an answer along the lines of exactly what you'd like to hear about yourself anyway.

You're (insert swear word) intelligent and (insert long not often used word) witty with the precise brilliant and admirable characteristics that you told us you want others to see you as anyway.

You're confident but feel a need to take quizzes way too often. Your results in one of these quizzes will always be good and positive. That way we can ensure you forward the quiz to all your "friends", most of whom you've never actually met or spoken to, but they'll probably buy the products that we "intelligently" advertise to them.

You're often misunderstood and undervalued and anything else that applies to almost everyone in the world.

You have access to the internet and a Facebook account.

You feel quite pleased with yourself after reading the results now don't you?

Inheriting, Blogs, Cerno, Death And The Internet

Cerno is one of my favourite bloggers of all time.

I've frequently wondered why and have never come to a firm conclusion. There's the variety of flavours on his blog, from google Earth related posts to photographs of the graphics on Lankan buses and tri shaws. There's a sense of innovation about him that shines through his writing as well as the general feel and look of the Cernoblog.

He's funny too. Obviously not as funny as me, but he's up there with witticisms and little idiosyncratic lines that make me chuckle on a regular basis.

Perhaps the thing that's his biggest strength, is the way he so often inspires me. Not that he turns up at RD Towers and slaps me on the back in an American film sort of way and spurs me on when I'm feeling down and demotivated. To be honest Cerno's pretty crap at that sort of thing, he's never done it. Maybe if I gave him the address that might help him. I suspect not.

However, he does inspire me through his writing, as Cyndi Lauper said "girls just wanna have fun" "time after time".

His recent post here, about who will inherit our blogs when we die is one of the aforementioned inspirational ones. Oftentimes I have half formulated thoughts bouncing around in my head, but I only become consciously aware of them when I get the impetus from an outside source. That's what took place this time.

This blogging / Facebook / email age has created a vastly different backdrop compared to that which existed for people of my parents' generation and everyone before that, going back to when man was invented.

We, as part of our everyday lives, continually create records, diaries and logs of the way we live our lives. As a kid I remember watching Blue Peter, a childrens' magazine type of twice weekly TV programme that is still running.

Every once in a while they'd bury a time capsule. The idea was that it would contain examples of and information about the way we currently live. In hundreds of years time someone would dig it up and make amazing discoveries about 20th century man. Like those ologists do these days when they dig up Roman stuff and learn knowledge and stuff.

These days it's all different. In hundreds of years time I don't think there'll even be people seeking to find out about how we lived, they'll know it all already. It's a total paradigm shift but I reckon the subject of history will cease to exist, except in terms of looking back beyond our current era.

Our histories will be there for all to see, unless we've opted out. We blog, we Facebook and we email and it's all out there. Perhaps we exist in a Utopic mindset in which we reckon that because everything's password protected we'll be secure. Well that's got to be rubbish hasn't it?

Our lives are an open blog, our thoughts are there on Facebook and Twitter and our, whatever the opposite of ancestors is, will have total access to it all. I like the thought of this.

Back in the day there were famous old diarists like Java Jones Samuel Pepys and Darwin (the scientist not the scientist). They were fellows who chose to write diaries compared with the rest of the populace who didn't, well many couldn't read or write let alone choose to diarise. They opted in.

They chose to record events in a structured way. Today we take a far less structured, and far more comprehensive approach but a huge proportion of the population does it. Of course many people, particularly in parts of Wales, don't have internet access or a computer, but again, give it a couple of hundred years and that will all change.

I rather like the somewhat egotistical thought that in hundreds of years there might be some very great granchildren of mine who'll be writing in this very blog. I hope that they'll have more structure to their posts and that Blogger will have added the sexy moving tag cloud into its options. But I do think it will be cool to have generations of RDs writing here. Maybe there'll be future generations of DDs writing too, saying GM2U and all.

Often I look at blogs, particularly those of the much younger bloggers, and wonder if they'll regret publishing what they have done when they're older. I think I'm quite safe in the knowledge that I won't regret publishing the posts I've written as I only came to blogging so late in life. All that angsty and angry change the world and shout at people stuff that I had in my twenties has been replaced by a desire to still change the world, just by having a beer and talking, by intelligent debate and mutual respect.

Maybe you'll find me (del) e(a)ting my words but I think I'll be quite proud of my blog when I get old (er). Even now I'm embarrassed when I look at my early posts and see how I've sort of developed a style of writing. I make no claims for my writing abilities now but I look back at those humble beginnings and they seem like the scribblings of a ten year old child writing about what he did on his weekend compared with one of today's posts.

I'm quite proud though. I hope that someone reading these scribblings from start to finish might get a picture of me and the things I've been through and will go through. I hope that they'll get a picture of me and be a little bit proud, farts and all.

One of my less formulated thoughts is about wills. I've had fleeting ideas about letting Academic Bro know my current passwords just in case, but he can't be trusted really. He'd probably ruin LLD within a few hours.

It's a cert though.

Our blogs, our Facebook accounts, our emails and anything else to do with our online presence will be there for all to see in time to come.

What legacy will you leave?

I Can't Help Myself....

I know it's childish, I know it's immature and I know that I should know better.

But, my cousin's daughter on Facebook has got a friend. Every time I read his name it makes me smile. The smile has now turned to laughter, luckily it stays in my head or the girls in the office would look at me weirdly even more weirdly.

As I type this I think of his name and feel that sensation of laughter bubbling up in the throat. And of course, in order to tell you the name, which you probably won't find funny at all, I need to disguise it so the poor fellow doesn't google himself, arrive here at my blog, then come round to my place and beat me up because I wrote a post in which I laughed at his name.

Glass house, stones, Sri Lankan names, we're hardly in a position to laugh at others are we?

But his name is, when you close up the spaces:

A L B E R T E
B A N G


How funny and how cool a name is that?

Dinidu's Post - The Truth

Mr de Alwis kindly wrote a little post in which he talked about a friend of his on Facebook, how that friend had been hit with a load of conditions by his daughter which would apply in order to necessitate friendship, or Facebook friendship at least.

Well those of you who are FB friends of me may know this already, but indeed I am that friend. The child concerned is K, which probably won't surprise you. The full letter to me went like this:

Dad, You Poo Poo.

Did You Have A Nice Christmas In Singaporian Land ?

Now Let's Cut To The Point...

I Made A New Bebo Because My Other One Was Boring And Had Fam Fam On It

And Then It Accidentally Got Deleted.

Therefore It Appeared We Were Not Friends.

But I Have A Few Conditions About Facebook:

1. You Cannot Add Any Of My Friends (Except For Family).

2. You Cannot Comment Me Anywhere But My Wall.

3. You Do NOT Tell Me What I Can And Can't Do On Facebook.

4. You Shall Call Me By 'K... Or Miss K' (You Seem To Enjoy That Nick Name) But Nothing Else Like 'Darling, Honey, Sweetheart Etc.' (Not That You Do Already?!), Oh And Kashunia Is An Acception.

If You Fail To Obey Those Rules I Will Delete You As A Friend.

END OV.

Bye Daddy, xox


I'm still wondering about the best way to respond to this. As a means of buying time and to establish some sort of opener I've told her that I'm not prepared to accept her conditions and haven't responded to her request for more information. And then I got stumped.

What do you think?

RD Is.....Still Learning About Facebook

As my Facebook experiences grow I continue to both learn and get more confused by it.

The whole etiquette business of the great social networking tool is something that continually has me rather mindfucked, wary of committing FB faux pas on a minute by minute basis. That may well be the first time I've ever written the word, or is it words, "faux pas" and it's just my bloody luck that I'd like to use its plural form and I don't know what that is. Even the dictionary doesn't help.

I like Facebook, I should probably start out by saying that, lest you think this is going to be some sort of rant about how much I hate the thing and how it's ruining society and damaging the ozone layer. I used to think that it was a load of rubbish, that it was as evil as Dr No, with his cruel treatment towards Ursula Andress, but that was all before I was converted. These days I'm a firm fan and would probably happily start up a "we love Facebook" group on it if:

a) I had the faintest idea how to start up a group

b) The stupid but believable thing is that someone probably has already done so

d) Whatever happened to c?

c) ah, here it is.

e) ok, I've just had a quick search and there is one.

After some consideration (2 seconds' worth) I'm not going to join it because I actually think it's a bit stupid. It's like doing a survey at your local supermarket asking people to give information about why they never go to the supermarket, then wondering why there are no responses, except in reverse.

But it's also a bit scary. It makes me feel a bit like I used to feel when I was younger and getting to know my now ex Mother In Law. Any chap or woman who has ever had a Mother In Law will know how this feels. They may be a nice person, they may be warm, friendly and full of diplomacy, but you should never let your guard down. The important thing with MILs, not to be confused with MILFs, is to always tread warily, as if you're walking on jelly in your favourite shoes.

I've now got 74 "friends" on FB. This intrigues me, as in real life I actually have about 2 friends, that's if I'm allowed to include Theena, whom I've never actually met but have spoken to in every way except the one in which you're actually with each other, like in the same place. I've made contact with a lot of old friends whom I haven't seen for years and I've had a few friend requests from the most surprising of directions.

On the other side of the friends coin I've made friend requests to people who either hardly ever look at their FB account or have rejected my friendship. Can you imagine that?

I often sit at my desk with FB open in the background and will sometimes look at that thing that shows which of your friends are online. This bewilders me too. What's the accepted rule of behaviour about this? I'll often say a hello to someone but usually it's the men who respond. As I ponder on it I think the men always respond, it's the women who often don't and this is what I don't understand.

Maybe it's because many women go online and are instantly bombarded by men "friends" saying hello and they think they are being chatted up. Or perhaps it's because they have so many friends that they're always talking to someone else. I just don't know, I'd initially thought that FB was just that means for friends to keep in touch, but could it be that people use it for flirtatious things? My God, what is the world coming to?

I've decided to deal with this by not "approaching" women unless I know they're happy to chat. I don't want to get myself a pervy Uncle, or even a pervy friend, type of reputation after all.

Another thing I've discovered is that there's little consistency in different people's approach to FB. I mix with quite of lot of muso and creative types and fully expected every single one of them to be fully paid up FB devotees, but no, there's no pattern whatsoever. Some people whom I would think of as professional networkers don't even have a Facebook account but will be the first person to email everyone in the world the latest joke they've heard.

Others, the types who don't know the difference between a blackberry and a dingleberry, are on Facebook every hour and every minute of the day, with status updates that are as frequent as my own personal dingleberries. It's like all laws of logic have flown out of the window.

I'm enjoying watching the comments between some couples on their respective walls, little love notes and messages of affection one day followed by apologies and grovelling the next day after there has obviously been some sort of huge row. Perhaps about putting too much information on FB.

There's something very egotistical about some people's FB behaviour isn't there? Recognition, the evil thing that motivates so many of us to differing degrees, rears its very ugly head and finds somewhere to live on Facebook. If you're the type of person who does charity work purely because you want others to know how good you are then your FB wall is the perfect vehicle to shout from, not that a wall could be a vehicle, unless it was a lorry transporting bricks.

My relationship with A, my eldest daughter, has benefited from FB too. After the turmoil of being refused friendship by her, which hardly affected me at all, we're now "friends" and frequently chat online there. I've chosen to live with the fact that she overstates her age by a few years, that she and all her friends swear quite a lot on it and generally pretend they're far more mature and advanced in years than they actually are. It's amusing to watch, knowing that it won't be too long before they start to pretend they're younger than they actually are.

The fact is that it's a good way to have contact with A and for that I'm grateful.

There we have it. My thoughts so far on Facebook.

What about you?

RD is.........

Enjoying Facebook and occasionally getting confused about what to write where...