If The Cap Fits...

So having taken the kids to Cadbury World and finding myself channelling a couple of comedy legends (a weird hybrid of Jim Carrey and Eric Morecambe) I thought it would be simply hilarious to pull a face on one of the rides that you simply have to go on while you're there.

No. You really do have to go on them. There is no way to get from one part of the factory to the other except by bizarre toyland tram-car through the disturbing dimensional rift that is Chuckleville.

Being an old hand at Cadbury World I knew there was a camera positioned halfway through the route that takes candid snaps of interlopers as they crawl their way through the alien landscape of chocolate bean land that you then feel morally obliged to buy and hide away in the loft (kidding yourself that this is the only copy and the good people of Cadbury World burn all the negatives).

Wouldn't it be a jolly jape, I thought, if I was gurning like a good 'un at the moment the flash went off and oh how we'd laugh when it came time to pick up the photos?

It having been a number of years since I last played the Comedy Club I was missing the uplifting shot in the arm that is reactive laughter so I thought, what the hell, I'd go for it. It might even cheer up some of the Cadbury staff who looked like they'd been injecting chocolate like a cheap form of botox.

We went on the Chockie Bean public transport system. The camera flash went off. The picture was taken. And we went to collect our photo.

To quote a Danielle Dax album: "Comatose Non-Reaction".

Nothing. Na-da. Not a titter.

"Hmm," I thought to myself, "Either the good staff at Cadbury World are one paracetamol away from suicide or I'm losing me touch."

I'd pulled my best blimmy and put my glasses on upside down and everything. That should have had them rolling in the aisles.

Instead there was not a dickie-bird.

When I got the photo back I could see why.

There was utterly no effing difference in my appearance from when I look "normal" to when I was pulling the face that Jim Carrey would have paid good money to be born with.

I looked exactly the same.

I'm not quite sure what that says about me but I have no doubt at all you'll all be queuing up to tell me.

A Little Less Banky

According to their TV adverts Barclays are launching a great new gimmick.

Personalized credit cards.

That’s right. Anyone with a camera or a hooky copy of Adobe Photoshop can design their own picture or graphic to be printed onto their Barclays credit card which they can then use in any store, restaurant or Heritage site in the country if not the entire world. Apparently, Barclay’s idea is to be “a little less banky”.

A-effing-mazing.

Being of a puerile bent, my mind instantly leapt at the potential for comedic mayhem that I could unleash onto my favourite unsuspecting store cashiers. A credit card with my middle-finger, enlarged by enforced perspective, erupting in eye-watering 3D as my gurning face grins lasciviously behind it. Yeah, swipe that shop clerk! Or maybe something a bit more satirical… me dressed up as a stereotypical crook – black and white striped jersey and black eye-mask, hauling a bag of swag over my shoulder. How much for my weekly shop, Mr Tesco? Daylight robbery? You betcha! Or even better… the ultimate social commentary. We’ve all heard of Christmas party goers photocopying their bum-cracks during office revels. Well, that’s small fry and amateurish compared to your very own credit card proudly displaying your cranked open bum cheeks below the MasterCard icon. Yeah, I’ll take some cash back on that please, Mr Cashier. Worth every frigging penny!

I even went so far as to mock up some initial designs and break out my digital camera. I even thought about acquiring a “back, sack and crack” but figured you could take suffering for your art a little bit too far.

In the end my little comedy ship ran aground before it even left the port (kind of like the Mary Rose only without the overblown Tudor ego weighing it down). It appears Barclays, utter killjoys that they are, have stipulated a few “image guidelines”. Here they are in all their full unbroken-down glory (my additions are in italics):

 

 

1. You must own the image or have the permission of the image owner to use it. (yeah, der)

2. If your image includes another person, you must have their consent to use it. (ditto)

3. The image you choose for your card must not contain any of the following:

• Trademarks or company names – eg, images marked with ® or ™ signs (so Jedi but not Star Wars)
• Images or text protected by copyright – eg, images marked with © or other watermarks or notations (no quotes from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four)
• Slogans, tag lines, branding, marketing or promotional products, services or images of companies (does that include “McBollocks”?)
•  Images of, or the name or nickname of, celebrities, musicians, sportspersons, entertainers, public figures, film stars, cartoon characters, members of the royal family or other famous people (bang goes my Paul Daniels’ “you’ll like this but not” a lot idea)
• Contact information – eg, telephone numbers, URLs, Facebook and Twitter usernames account numbers, addresses or email addresses (a major blow to call-girls everywhere and I can’t even poke the checkout girl)
• Political statements or images relating to ethnicity or religion (so much for my “Jesus, that’s expensive!” idea)
• Images of flags, except for the Union Jack/UK flag, St George’s Cross/English flag, St Andrew’s Cross/Scottish flag, The Red Dragon/Welsh flag and St Patrick’s Saltire/Northern Irish flag. If any of these are used, they can only be images of the original national flags and must not be edited, cropped or have any additional art work or writing on them (what about the Jolly Roger – is that not OK?)
• Images, signs, symbols or text relating to money, currency, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, gangs, hatred, graffiti, betting, gambling, or financial products and services (what? banking generally)
• Provocative, lewd or sexual images or content (that’s 95% of images on the internet ruled out)
• Nudity (does that include animals?)
• Offensive material – eg, images, signs, symbols or text relating to violence, death, injury, racism, cruelty, profanity, obscenity, weapons, firearms, ammunition or terrorism (that’s all references to the armed forces ruled out)
• Anti-social or obscene behaviour, or socially unacceptable groups (so sober pacifist tramps are OK?)
• Content where drinking, being drunk, smoking or gambling is the focus (the Great British social scene down the pan)
• Text, unless benign and in the English language (no interesting quotes from Chaucer)
• Any image that might reflect poorly or might engender hostility toward company brands, including MasterCard®, Visa® or Barclays (that’s my bumhole right out of the equation then)
• Any reference to the Olympic Games, World Cup or any other international branded event (no candid shots of the Ladies’ Bowls Tournament)
• Reference to any bank, building society or other monetary institution (so much for my “HSBC is great” idea and I guess the Mafia is out too?)
• Weapons, unless in a ceremonial context (what if I kill someone during a twenty-one gun salute?)

Right. Basically this rules out any idea that I have already had and / or any idea that I am ever going to have. I pretty much guarantee it. Apart from one. The word BORING in very large type spread across the face of the card.

*sigh*

Yet again, the bankers of this country have stifled creativity, public spending and the potential for economic growth.

Maybe the word “shameful” would be a more suitable design?

The Maltings

Modern suburban bliss.

That’s what this photograph conjures up.

But lying beneath that idea, for me, is a whole heap of childhood memories.

The building above form a residential development in Leamington Spa called The Maltings. It takes its name – and indeed much of its design aesthetic – from the buildings that were there originally.

When this site was first developed the buildings formed a local brewery – we’re talking some time in the 1800s here. Back when I knew the site in the 1970’s the brewery had closed down and I think the site was somehow shared between the local authority and Severn Trent Water. Certainly Severn Trent used to park their fleet of vans in the car park alongside those of the council bin men.

My grandfather worked for Severn Trent for much of his working life. Hence the connection.

Sunday’s were my favourite day as a kid. Every Sunday me and my sisters would spend the day with my grandparents – my Nan and Bampap. Bampap would pick us up around 10.30 and the journey we’d take to my grandparent’s house was painfully, joyously circuitous. We’d call in on family friends first – a whole host of people who became adopted as Aunty This and Uncle That. My grandparents came from the generation where friends were people you actually made time to see and visit rather than just poke on Facebook. They are each memories in themselves.

Regularly though we’d call in on the site now known as The Maltings.

Due to the Severn Trent connection my grandfather had access to the place and the facilities (such as they were – this was the 1970’s after all). This consisted solely of a standpipe and a hose with which he’d wash his car for free while me and my sister (my youngest sister was yet to be born) sat in the car and giggled at the sound of the water hitting the metal roof and running in curving arcs down the windscreen. On occasion, Bampap would allow us out of the car and we’d go for a nose around the offices. All strictly covert and secret. He’d tell us not to touch anything and then slyly nick us notepads and pencils from the stationery cupboard or dial the speaking clock on the telephone so we could hear the time recited to us in clipped BBC English.

I remember once he left us in the car while he went off about some business or other. He wouldn’t be long he said, we were to wait in the car. I daresay he was gone barely 15 minutes but to me and my sister, at 8 and 7 years old, it seemed an age and we began to panic that he wasn’t coming back. An idea that seems so ridiculous to me now I can’t believe I ever thought it. Being the oldest it was up to me to act and I decided we ought to roll down the window and climb out and go look for him.

Having made the decision I then sat back whilst my sister acted and I have a fuzzy memory of her managing to squeeze out of the driver’s side-window and dropping down to the ground just as Bampap appeared asking us at the top of his voice what the hell we were doing? I remember I was relieved to see him, not least because I doubted I’d be as agile as my sister and would not have got out of the window safely.

My other memories of this time are fragmentary. Reflections in a broken mirror. I remember the vans that used to be parked there. I remember the clock tower on the old brewery building. I remember the feral cats that we’d sometimes see scampering about and that Bampap would try and entice towards him by rubbing his fingers together as if to proffer food.

An entire decade of Sunday mornings are reduced down to a few mental snapshots and disembodied feelings that I know would hold me tightly if only I could bring them more into the light.

The Maltings development is lovely. I’m sure it is a very nice place to live and there are plaques commemorating the site’s former usage as a brewery – all part of Leamington’s rich history.

But when I walk by now I can’t help but feel a wistful sort of regret. Regret and sadness.

All that meant anything to me about the place is gone. Long gone.

And the plaque I have in my mind is now not as clear as it once was.

As my Nan would have said: happy days.

Ask Me About Fleas And Worms

The picture above isn’t a mock-up.

It is a genuine poster on display outside the Pets At Home store in Leamington Spa.

I saw it last week and it literally stopped me in my tracks. I had to take a photo of it, such was my disbelief.

That poor woman! That was my initial thought. That poor, poor woman. Because she doesn’t look like a model or a stand-in (I have pixellated her face to protect her identity – though I acknowledge the futility of that considering she’s on a 6ft poster outside the store for all to see). She looks the genuine article. A real, bona fide store assistant. Some poor women who got called to the manager’s office one day and told to sit down in the comfy seat. The one with arms and a swivel mechanism that works.

“Barbara,” the manager would have said. “Babs. Do you mind if I call you Babs?”

And she would have smiled sweetly and thought, “Shit, he’s either going to fire me or I’m going to have to suck him off to get promotion.”

And then the manager would have revealed the truth. No sucking off. Just sucking.

“Babs, we would like you to be the face of our new campaign. Out of thousands of employees we have chosen yours as the face of our new marketing drive to encourage pet owners to check their beloved pets for fleas and worms. Yours is the visage that says, ‘Yes, I am an expert in this field and I am approachable if you wish to discuss your flea and worm problems.’ We’ve even had a T-shirt made up in your size. Slip it on, Babs, the photographer is downstairs waiting. Or I can give you your P45 if you prefer?”

And that was it. Deal done. Fate sealed. Picture taken. Credibility broken upon the cold altar of commerce.

That poor woman.

Is this the new MO for marketing campaigns? Is this a sign of how things are going to go?

What next?

CBeebies stalwart Justin Fletcher splayed on a poster with the words “Ask me about CRB checks” written in bold Comic Sans MS type beneath his clownish features?

A nice big political campaign poster of David Cameron above the words “Ask me about integrity, fairness and how to protect the rights of the vulnerable”?

How about G4S frontman Nick ‘Buckles under pressure’ with the words: “Ask me about your safety at the Olympi... whoops...!” or Rupert Murdoch “Ask me about a citizen’s right to privacy”?

The list, unlike this blog post, is I am sure endless.

But please don’t ask me about it.

Remember Me?

I came across the above photo surreptitiously (you can click on it to enlarge it). I say surreptitiously because it was not sent to me; I merely found it on an old school acquaintance’s Facebook page. I doubt they even remember me, let alone would have reason to send me a copy of the photo.

Because you see, despite this being a snapshot of my peers outside my old sixth form college, I am not on it. I don’t even recall this photo being taken. I was totally unaware of it at the time; the fact that somebody gathered this select few together, organized them, took the photo. I was not invited or even told about it.

That sounds bitter – and maybe it is – but that was undeniably my first reaction.

Followed swiftly by a “why the hell would they have invited me anyway?”

You see I doubt if most of the people in this photograph would remember me. I expect that most of them didn’t know who I was even at the time. They would have past me in the corridors, sat behind me in the classrooms and I wouldn’t have impinged on their consciousness in the slightest. Except maybe as “the really uncool kid”, “the nerd”, “the weird looking one”.

I doubt if I had a name to most of these people.

I was a wallflower at school. Complete and utter. And while my sixth form years were the start of me emerging from my awkward shell, I was still a long way off from gaining any kind of confidence or self esteem.

When I look at this photo I feel a painful sense of want. An agony of wanting to fit in and be cool and be popular. Kind of like Kung Fu Panda (before he discovered the secrets of Kung Fu) wanting to hang out with the Furious Five.

Only for me it was never going to happen.

A couple of my friends are on this photo. Tristan Fitzgerald and Steve Fox. It’s telling that they didn’t tell me about this photo being taken at the time. For them it would have been a pleasant but not particularly especial event. If I had been asked to join this group it would have made my entire year.

Well. It plainly wasn’t my year.

It’s weird to see how young everyone looks. So eighties. So dated. Faintly ridiculous. And yet this was the epitome of cool. This was a group of teens who thought they knew it all before University and Life proved to them how wrong they all were.

This was a group of teens who I envied, who I hated, who I adored and in a couple of cases – Sarah Cullen and Emily Sweetman – I would even have gladly drunk your bath water.

But I am not in this photo. I am somewhere else in the building. Probably in a darkened room writing trauma inducing poetry about not fitting in. About not belonging. About desperately wanting to. About how was I ever, ever going to get a girlfriend?

Looking at this photo now I can finally see how all that really didn’t matter. It was only me that made it matter; that hamstrung myself with it. All those useless hang-ups. All those miserable desires and the unfairness of not having them realized.

Looking at this photo now I wish I could go back in time and instil a different kind of world-view into myself. To not have myself care so much. To bother a good deal less about other people’s opinions. To have the scales pulled from my eyes. To pull these people down from the dais that I had placed them on. To stop wanting to be like them.

Because going my own way – as I eventually did – was always the right thing to do.

To not be on this photograph was always the best thing to be.

I just didn’t realize it at the time.

This is a photograph of me before I woke up to myself. Before I became me.

It’s only now that I’m smiling for the camera.

Screw You, Google!

Google Earth.

A lot has been written about it.

References made to 1984, Big Brother, The All Seeing Eye, satellite spy networks, burglaries and virtual house-rapes.

Suddenly, with the help of modern photographic technologies, computer aided flight and an online search engine with a god complex, any Tom, Dick or Harriet can take a leisurely stroll across our front lawns, peer up our back passages or peer over our garden fences to see who we’re burying beneath our patios without fear of apprehension, condemnation or even question.

Google Earth has laid bare our castle ramparts and exposed our jakes to the entire universe.

But did they ask our permission to do this? Did they check that it was OK?

No. The hell they did. Don’t make me laugh!

I believe even now you have to jump through several thousand hoops just to win the opportunity to opt out.

Well, enough is enough. It’s time to make a stand. Our privacy has been invaded for the last time. The campaign to end the rule of Google Earth starts here.

See, I’m fed up of living with the feeling that someone is continually watching me over my shoulder, analyzing my every move digitally. Every time an aircraft passes overhead I feel a cold shudder of paranoia rattle through my bones. Is it photographing me? Pixellating the new and slightly illegal loft conversion that I didn’t run past the planning department of my local town council? Is it perving at my wife sunbathing in the back garden? Is some cyber nerd in the Sudan going to be drooling over my herbaceous borders and planning to steal my succulents? Cos thanks to Google Earth anyone can pinpoint my every garden possession and identify the make of my wife’s car. My garden gnomes no longer feel safe.

At first the paranoia made me hunch my shoulders. Made me want to hide my face. It was then – on the very cusp of turning into a hoodie, faced with a fate worse than death – that something snapped and I made my stand. With the buzz of a light aircraft ricocheting through the stratosphere over my head I could suddenly take no more. I turned to face it. I peered upwards and gave that snarling aircraft the bird long and hard. Finger straight, right up its imaginary jacksy.

“Screw you, Google Earth!” I cried, “Take a photo of this!”

And now I do it every time I hear or see a plane. Even hot air balloons and microlights get it. See, I want Google Earth to photograph me now. I want some criminal mastermind in the Dordognes, searching online for an easy hit on mainland Britain, to search my street, take a virtual walk up my garden path and find me there giving him the finger.

But more than that. I want there to be someone on every street, in every town and city, in every county in this great country – hell, even the world – someone brave enough to face the eye in the sky when it flies over and give it the almighty finger of freedom. To yell “Swivel on this!” at the top of their voices! You like technology, Google? Well, it doesn’t get much more digital than this!

So join me, brothers and sisters. Let the revolution begin. Let us take back what belongs to us. When you hear a plane fly overhead you know what to do. Push away your pens; cast aside your keyboards; welly your Wii’s out of the window. Hit the street with me and offer up your finest bird up to those that would deny us our privacy.

You want to have a finger in all of our pies, Google? Well here’s a finger for you!

Raaaargh!

+++ We interrupt this blog for a special service announcement. The author has been rushed into a psychiatric hospital for immediate assessment. It seems that after reaching his 600th post he is beginning to suffer delusions of grandeur. We hope to restore normal service very soon. +++

Bampap

I don’t think the name Bampap is one that is used universally. In fact I’m pretty sure it was created and remained within the confines of my family. My mother, as a toddler, referred to her grandfather as “Bampap” – a young child’s attempt to say “granddad” perhaps – and the name kind of stuck. When I and my sisters were born 20 years later the title was passed onto us as if it were the norm. So our granddad, my mother’s father, was always known as Bampap. Not being a particularly observant child it was years before I realized that other families didn’t have a Bampap.

You may disagree but I think that they missed out.

This first photo was taken in 1942. The place is obvious. My granddad – Bampap – and his mates are plainly on shore leave, a few precious days on land before returning to sea and the war. In the years before he died Bampap spoke almost wistfully of his war years. His memories of Cairo seemed to revolve around the street names where all the best whorehouses were and the advice given to all the men by the ship’s doctor. If you’ve been with one of the girls go and see a one of the city doctors before you come back to the ship – their medical supplies were extremely limited and if you came on board with the clap you were liable to be stuck with it for months until you struck land again.

He never said if he’d indulged and I didn’t ask. It wouldn’t have been the gentlemanly thing to do.

I apologize for the quality of the photo – but, hey, it is over 50 years old and the camera would have been rough and ready. Here is a blown up shot of my granddad. He’s the guy in the middle with the fabulous nose. He kept that nose and that body shape for all of his life. Always remaining trim and with a beak that somehow didn’t mar his looks.

Years later in 1999 I made my own journey to Egypt and here is a photo of me standing in roughly the same place as my granddad over 50 years later. I don’t cut a dash in the same way, do I? I’m thankful that he was able to see this photo before macular degeneration robbed him of 90% of his eyesight a few years later.

My one regret is not writing down the names of Bampap’s war mates. He had many and there are lots of photos of them. Photos of young boys who look cheery, chirpy and cheeky despite being in the middle of a war. If you believe the mood of the photos they are on holiday; a foreign cruise; out on the pull. That so wasn’t the case. I think my granddad was the only one of his little group who made it home again. I once made the comment that I bet he knew who his mates were in those tough times. He only nodded and said “yes, and I lost them all.” There’s not much you can say to that.

This last photo was taken in 1975. And yes, the boy in the picture with the NHS glasses is me. The girl is my oldest sister. I have no idea where this photo was taken or by whom. It can’t have been my Nan because our heads are all in shot. She’d have cut them off or else chopped off our feet instead.

This is how I like to remember him. The sharp beak which protruded from eyes that were always mischievous and kind. The smart blazer with the naval insignia he was so proud of sewn onto the breast pocket. The awkward love and protectiveness that he always exuded.

His presence always made us feel safe as kids. I think that comes over in the photo. Wherever we are, we’re more than happy to be there.

He’d have been 90 today.

Compare & Contrast

Addendum: I've since had it confirmed by my mother that the (older) gentleman in the picture below is my maternal great-grandfather not paternal and has therefore been identified as Henry Hyde and not, as previously stated, Arthur Benjamin Olorenshaw.

I rarely publish photographs of myself on this blog. Not because I think I’m particularly un-photogenic (although I do) but simply because (and I realise this is a paradox) I like to retain an element of privacy even as I lay my soul bare with a series of sumptuously written exposés detailing my sexual and criminal exploits as an MI5 operative in Siberia (including my life and times as a circus based gigolo). Apologies if you have missed those posts but you really should have been paying better attention.

However, the call went out for a photograph of me – donning a flat cap – with which you could all compare and contrast the one of my great-granddad that featured in my previous post. I was simply overwhelmed and inundated with two of you demanding I supply such a unique photograph.

And thus, even though I have a hundred and one other things to write about – including my blog being stalked by someone who fancies themselves as an old school East End villain (I kid you not – just wait for Thursday’s post) – I have decided to acquiesce to this request.

So here for your delectation is once again my great-granddad, Henry Hyde, and for the first time ever, yours truly, full faced, cloth capped and making lurve to the camera:

I leave it up to you to figure out which one is which.

The Family Moustache

Addendum: I've since had it confirmed by my mother that the gentleman in the picture below is my maternal great-grandfather not paternal and has therefore been identified as Henry Hyde and not, as previously stated, Arthur Benjamin Olorenshaw.

There are some synchronicities that stretch down through the ages. Eye shape, cheek bones, crooked toes. Physical and biological DNA fingerprints that are passed on at the cellular level. Familial biometrics. A lottery that we have no choice about but find ourselves born with. Ooh you have your mother’s eyes, etc.

But then there are others. The physical, the biological traits that we do choose.

Confused? Think of the moustache.

Yes. Think of it. Stroke it. Caress it in your mind.

It grows quite naturally but with the technology of the modern world keeping it is a personal choice. To beard or not to beard. Hirsute you, sir.

I first allowed my face to be graced with facial hair in my early twenties. I sported a full on beard and tache. Not quite the Brian Blessed aurora bristlyaris but coupled with my waist length hair it gave me a full on Bejasus look that the locals kids would daily feel compelled to comment upon. Little tykes. Ah bless.

And then, sometimes in my thirties, my marvellous continent of beard began to be invaded with white hairs. Lots of them. I’ve never been one for the badger look (“as rough as a badger’s arse” is my favourite expression – wouldn’t be good to have a facsimile of one on my face) so I elected with the help of my good lady girlfriend (now my good lady wife) to trim the beard into something a little more sporty. To drop the people carrier in favour of an MG.

The result was an entirely separate moustache and goatee (although I can grow them “joined up” I choose not to). I’ve had it for years now and it feels very much “me”.

So it was rather comforting whilst digitally scanning some of my grandparent’s old photographs into the computer to come across this picture of my great-granddad, Henry Hyde:

Check the tache. That’s mine, that is. To a T. I know other people had moustaches in those days but not everyone did. Old Henry H made an aesthetic choice regarding his whiskers that I have matched over a hundred years later. It’s a tenuous link I know but it is beefed up by the fact that the structure of his face quite closely mirrors my own. Both Karen and I can see a likeness to me within the sepia definitions of a face that I never ever saw firsthand.

I feel a sense of connection. A bond. A correlation in what constitutes good face furniture. Separated by a hundred years of family and global history our moustaches bristle proudly from the same town in the same country... in the same shape.

The family moustache is alive and well.

Rest assured, when the time comes I shall ensure that it is passed onto my sons and carried forward, cleaned and possibly waxed, into all perpetuity.

Make the most of those naked top lips, boys, ‘cos they won’t be that way forever.

Theftbook

My relationship with Facebook has always been fraught to say the least.

I find the site annoyingly clunky, slow loading and just too bloated with useless “apps” and fly-by-night user groups who constantly paw at me wanting my cyber attention when in truth I’m rarely in the mood to give it.

The facility I use most on Facebook is the “ignore” button and I do apologize if you have been on the wrong end of it. It’s nothing personal.

Why be on Facebook in the first place then?

Well. I was curious. It was recommended to me by a friend (a real one). And I thought “why not?”

And once you’re on there it’s damned hard to get yourself off.

Facebook, you see, doesn’t like to let go.

Facebook has ownership issues.

Facebook is something of a smug, grasping, bully that doesn’t like to let anyone of anything out of its mucky clutches.

Want evidence?

Facebook has now decided to grant itself rights to users’ photos, wall posts and just about every conceivable bit of information that people are naïve enough to post on its site. Forever.

Even if you manage to delete your account all your photos and information will be archived somewhere and available for use by the Facebook bigwigs for what has been quoted in the Metro as “public performances”

Public performances?

WTF?

Has Facebook not heard of the data protection act or are they somehow exempt?

Here’s another quote for the Metro (only the best sources for me):

“Yesterday, the site’s founder Mark Zuckerberg attempted to defuse the row, insisting in his blog, ‘In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want.’”

Ri-i-i-i-ght.

In a way I wouldn’t want.

So that’ll be not at all then.

So what’s the point of Facebook hanging onto such information and private (can you read that, Zuckerberg: P – R – I – V – A – T – E ) photos in the first place?

Or is Facebook hoping that at some point in the future I will be quite content to let my personal information be used in some viral advertising campaign or pasted over a Beatles soundtrack to sell an updated version of their shitty little web site to invading Martians? Or even enable Wal-Mart to target me with useless white goods that they think I desperately need and must absolutely buy?

Dream on, Facebook.

Keeping my information without my express permission is theft. Holding my photos – my intellectual property – for a future use that I cannot control or opt out from, no mater how innocuous, is an infringement of my basic human rights.

Facebook, it’s time you were de-faced.

Permanently.

Faces

Tom is now just over 10 months old and everybody who sees him says exactly the same thing.

My God, but he looks so like Karen.

Then as an after thought they look me up and down, frown a bit and add apologetically, oh but we can see a bit of you in him as well.

I’m actually becoming grateful for this small concession.

However, a recent visit to my granddad last week brought Karen into contact with some very old photographs of yours truly as a baby. There’s a particular one of me and my sister (also confusingly called Karen) when we were both wee toddlers, obviously taken in a photographer’s studio, where I’m holding a rubber duck with the kind of passion that only an 2 year old muster.

Tom and I could be identical twins. The likeness is uncanny. My first thought was to show this photograph to everybody obliquely mentioned above accompanied by the words: see, I did make a major contribution to the genetic make-up of this child!

My second thought was if everybody thinks Tom looks like Karen but he also looks the spit of me as a child... is the theory that people fall in love with partners who look most like them true?

I mean there are similarities between Karen and me but I don’t think they’re blazingly obvious... though Karen has commented before that we have many likenesses...

Is this true of everybody though?

Is there something secretly narcissistic going on that I don’t know about?

If there is I may have to stop dressing up in Karen’s clothes...

Birthday Boy

Yesterday saw yours truly hit the ripe old age of 38.

Yes. I know. You’re all reeling in shock. “38!” I hear you cry. “But how can that be when your writing is always so youthful and (what’s the word you kids use?) rad?”

Well, it’s time to come clean. I’m a 69 boy and proud of it.

Erm. Let me rephrase that. I was born in the year 1969 and am proud of it. I’m proud to have cut my teeth (quite literally) in the space age. I’m old enough to remember black and white TV that closed down for the night at 12 o’clock. I can recall glam rock, punk, New Wave, Shoe-gazing and grunge long before they all stepped up to the plate yet again in the 21st Century. I can remember Penny Chews and Rhubarb & Custard sweets. I chortled at Hong Kong Phooey and Top Cat. I guffawed at Rentaghost and Chorlton & The Wheelies. I fancied Daphne from Scooby-doo. And Cheryl Ladd from Charlie’s Angels.

And 30 odd years later nothing much has changed.

Well. Apart from the fact that my hair is turning grey and I become a grumpy old git when I hear what passes for music on the radio these days. Bah humbug. Who told that Calvin Harris chappie he could sing, eh?

Anyway, I had a terrific day – Karen and I both had the day off work and she treated me to a fabulous Thai meal in Stratford. I was also showered in gifts – the most notable being a beautiful 7.1 Megapixel camera which knocks the spots of my old one by miles. I was also overwhelmed to find the Life On Mars and Rome box sets among my birthday bounty along with Hot Fuzz and The Last King Of Scotland. I have some terrific viewing ahead of me. Karen’s done me proud (erm, let me rephrase that... er, oh yeah; I’ve done that joke, haven’t I?).

Karen also treated me to various stylish articles of clothing and a couple of survival handbooks by the god of nettle-tea and mushroom sticking plasters himself, Ray Mears. The accoutrements to my life are complete.

Global warming can bring it on.

I’m ready for it.

Magoo

Last Friday afternoon witnessed the photo shoot of the century. Yours truly, the photographer from The Courier and my freshly dusted PC (gleaming under a glass-like patina of Mr Sheen - my one and only glamour prop) were all crammed into my office at home in an attempt to recreate on digital media that classic iconic image of a fast tracking media mogul about to hit the big time.

Picture leopard skin rugs draped seductively over the chaise longue. Picture black silk sheets draped like Bedouin tent flaps from every wall and rafter. Picture exotic cocktails in the hands of fawning dolly birds pawing at my quivering flesh as I fling yet another verbal masterpiece onto the internet with the lightest of touches... and you’ll have an exact idea of what the whole experience wasn’t like.

To be fair the photographer was a really decent bloke and if he fulfils his promise to me of not making me look like a nerd or a pratt I may even buy him a drink should I ever run into him the next time I frequent my usual drinking establishment of choice.

The problem was, given the tiny proportions of my (steady! steady!) office I spent the entire duration with my ugly mug practically crushed up into the guy’s zoom lens. Not exactly the close-up that either of us wanted. I lost count of how many photos he took but by the fifteenth attempt to get the perfect shot my carefree, natural smile had become a rictus of spasming muscles and I looked like I was trying to pass a gold plated Boeing 747 out of my nether regions. By the twenty-seventh shot I’d become so blinded by the flash that I was blinking entirely out of trauma reflex and probably resembled a photo-phobic Tourettes sufferer. Great. Say effing cheese for the camera.

The end result will no doubt be that should I be lucky enough to actually have my ugly mug feature in The Courier I will simply look like Mr Magoo with a terminal coke habit...

Marvellous.

Point me to my limousine, Waldo.