Validation

I recently received an email from an un-named person asking me to check out their blog and start 'following' it. I did have a read of a few posts and it is indeed quite amusing - I shall be adding it to my google reader - however I won't be 'following' it.

Because let's be honest, it's all a little bit bollocks isn't it, this following lark? It's a teeny small step away from seeing how many friends you can get on facebook ffs. I assume it came from a twitter universe, but that's something I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole - just another excuse for people to increase the mundanity of the galaxy whilst using the fewest number of actual words.

(At least I use proper words on this...)

Let alone followers, I found it hard enough to keep a blog-roll on my previous blog (you may notice that I don't keep one on this one). The politics of it got to me. If someone added you on their blog-roll then it would be rude not to add them to yours, right? Then you find yourself not reading a particular blog anymore, but if you remove them from your list then are you sparking some sort of confrontation? Will they take it personally? Would this be the start of some long-standing internet vendetta? Just in case you leave them all there, and you're suddenly left with a list of blogs you don't read that gets longer and longer. Like some sort of outcast list from hell.

Or maybe I just think about it too much.

I guess it comes down to why any of us blog in the first place. Do you blog for yourself, or do you blog to get hits or comments? Personally I write because I feel like it. If I get a comment then I get a little 'ooooh I got a comment' thrill that maybe someone either liked what I wrote or wanted to advertise soft porn in Mandarin. If I don't get any then as long as I liked what I wrote then that's cool. The moment the hits and the comments start to matter it's a short, slippery slope to targeting them and the inevitable descent into the wankfest that is the 'bloggies'.

I mean seriously, could a series of awards for blogs voted on by people who read blogs possibly be more pretentious? Well yes it could. It could be blogher - a series of conferences (conferences for christ's sake!) for women who blog. Mainly about babies, the funny things that happen with babies, waiting for a baby to be born and how sad it is to not have babies anymore. There'd never be a bloghim, because frankly what would be the fucking point? I probably have more in common with the last person I passed in the street than some random man who happens to write a blog.

I don't have the time or the inclination to write as frequently as I used to. The truth is that there are things in the real world that are more important to me now. I enjoy venting or trying to make people laugh when I get the chance to do so, and I don't think I've done that bad a job over the years. I'll never be as inventively profane as Veggie, nor as eloquently verbose as Mr London Street (though he seems to be quite depressed at the moment for some reason). Unless something drastic happens I'm unlikely to ever be a published author like Elle (though she changes blogs so often that may no longer be a valid link. She's also my closest blogger geographically speaking so we're practically family), or have such a consistently funny outlook on life like Pearl. I'll hopefully never be as paranoid as P, or indeed work in the same environment as Kevin (how he puts up with it I don't know). And I'll probably never be a bananas gorilla either.

I've written some good posts - my ever-so-slightly-made-up guide to speaking Bristolian has been credited with two new words in an online dictionary AND has been cited in a linguistics paper about the origins of the 'pirate accent' (leaving me with the wonderful thought that an aged Johnny Depp will be blurting out 'TUGBOAT BUSTERS!' in Pirates of the Caribbean 7) - and my brutally honest stylings have led me to Mrs RS (for we met via the comments forms on each other's blogs). Plus I must be doing something right because you're reading this, and your taste in reading is exemplary. By the way, that top really suits you. No, seriously, it matches your eyes. And have you lost weight recently? I think you have...


Anyway, you're probably expecting me to retire from this place about now after all that nonsense, but really I'm just reflecting on the news that blogging is losing the interest of teenagers everywhere. I know, shocking isn't it? I wasn't particularly bothered until I was informed that:

One student said teenagers had lost interest in blogging because they needed to type quickly and "people don't find reading that fun".

And if people don't want to read, then why do we all bother writing? Now excuse me, I'm off to stare at the TV for a few hours like a cretin. Apparently that's 'fun'.

Cooking advice...

Dear Cook-in-the-Cafe-at-work,

Things that leeks and potatoes are good in:

• soup
• stew
• the occasional pie

Things that leeks and potatoes are not good in:

• curry

Please bear this in mind the next time you make a Chicken Bhuna.

Yours in gastronomic anticipation,

Red Squirrel

Smile...

No matter what happens in my day, the best parts of it are always when people make me laugh. Maybe it's a product of growing up in England (after all, you have to have a wicked sense of humour to live here and remain vaguely sane) but genuine moments of mirth are to be treasured.

So hats of this week to a senior manager at Apple UK and a local landlord who have both amused me greatly.

The former strolled past a friend of mine last Friday about 3pm as he and a group of colleagues were idly discussing their plans for the weekend. The manager stopped, put his head around the cubicle wall and said, "Excuse me, do we pay you all a bit less on a Friday?"

Fantastic. I shall be using that one myself :)

As for my local landlord, well he's placed a sign in the window of his pub (at one end of a short strip of pubs, bars and restaurants) that reads:

'Last Pub for 22 yards'

:)

Breaking news from Apple...

They appear to have shrunk their board members for a start.

Midget Jobs struggled with his iPhone

What an utter waste of time, effort and money. I shudder to think of what they'll come up with next - the 42" version that sits on a stand in the corner of the room and is called the 'iView' perhaps?

Although I think the Daily Mash said it best.

IT DO TELLY!