6 posts tagged “me”
Pudsey agreed to have his picture taken at Children In Need 2008.
I didn't spend very much time in his company. He was very busy.
Still, he did agree to have his picture taken.
He seemed like a nice bear, it has to be said.
I've spent ages reading over photography magazines wondering how it is that other Flickr users I know manage to pull off a dramatic sky.
Apparently, the secret is fitting a neutral density filter to the lens and then firing the shutter release. I've assumed that perfect results are guaranteed with every shot.
Personally, I'm not absolutely convinced. First off, I know I could probably achieve the same results using Photoshop (although frankly, I can't be arsed). But secondly, I want that horizon I see every single day when I trundle my way down the hill to my front door to be more far dramatic than it is in this shot. I figured that just adding a filter would do the job. Now it seems I have to fiddle with the exposure a bit more or - shudder - actually do a spot of post-production.
Who really thinks digital photography is easy?
With the day's events and numerous conversations weighing heavily on my mind - that journey home takes forever when I'm slightly below par - it was inevitable I'd lose patience with their seemingly constant inability to arrive at a decision.
"That's the one we want," signalled the grandfather of the family and obvious self-imposed leader of the group, "The next one is the 1929."
"Where, I don't see it," complained his wife, her nose pressed against the timetable, "I don't see where you mean. Where?"
"There," he shouted back, pointing more insistently, "Now where do we get it from. It's platform three."
It wasn't platform three. It was nothing like platform three. I know that. Nothing goes south of London Bridge from platform three. Impatience at not being able to find out when the next train to Hither Green departed fuelled my certainty that the day-tripping family needed advice and did not need platform three.
A firm, practical yet goal-driven approach seemed the best course of action. I waded in accordingly.
"Where do you want to go?" I asked with a charming smile and assertive tone.
"Well, Gravesend, obviously," replied the grandmother.
Overlooking her impatience, I pointed to the departures screen above their heads. "The 1929 doesn't go from platform three. It goes from platform five. You're obviously not going to get that one, so you're next train is at 1943."
Clearly impressed with my obvious can-do attitude, one of the ladies in the group turned around and asked, "And where should we go for that one?"
"Well," I replied, "just keep an eye on the departures screen up there. The 1943 isn't on there yet because it's too early. But it should appear at the bottom of the right hand screen shortly."
"Thank you," she replied, "you've been so helpful."
"You're welcome. If you fancied a walk you could always try the departures board at the top of those stairs along the platform. You'll find all the departures there listed by town."
At no point did I think for a moment (until I find myself retelling the tale) that I was pointing out the blindingly obvious. And yet, realising that my train to Hither Green also left from platform five in only a few minutes, I quickly trotted up the stairs, over the footbridge and down on to the platform. When I looked over my shoulder I found them not far behind having followed me up the stairs and past the departure board.
It's not that I'm feeling smug they followed my advice. I'm not necessarily relieved they found their train. I'm more impressed with myself that in a split-second when I observed intense irritation brewing uncontrollably inside me, I felt able to pinpoint exactly what needed to done and how it needed to be done in order to get the irritation out of my system and out of my way.
I sound vile, don't I? I don't mean to. What that little exchange reminded me of was how I'm exactly the same in situations where I'm keen to see something completed. If there's something I know needs doing and I know exactly who I need to speak to in order to get it done, I'm there like a shot talking to all and sundry regardless of their status or personality.
It's something I feel proud of as I sit at Hither Green station platform finishing this little missive of. It's also something I know antagonises the hell out of most people I come into contact with.
I'd heard talk of a Facebook application which tracks who views your profile and, perhaps more arrestingly, one which alerts you when you've been removed from a friends list. I'd dismissed it when my friend told me about it. "Nobody in their right mind would install that application," I'd snorted with derision.
In case you're not a Facebook user or if you are and you don't understand what I'm banging on about in the opening gambit, let me explain. One of Facebook's major advantages in terms of managing one's friends list is that should you find yourself in a situation where you want to "remove" one of the people on your friends list you can do so without them ever knowing. It says so when you click on the remove button. I know. I've done it often enough. "They'll never know I've done this. It's the best way."
The reasons I've had for removing people from my friend's list have been largely self-centred. As someone who frequently suffers as a result of misinterpreting electronic communication and worrying that others might possibly misinterpret similar electronic presentations of my own, I figure the fewer people I have to worry about on a distribution list the better. Facebook is just that. Nothing more than a email distribution list with a few pretty bells and whistles. Keep the distribution low(ish) and there's a little bit less to worry about whenever I do something - anything - on the internet.
Consequently, I have from time to time, engaged in a spot of culling. The principle is the same as pruning the bushes outside my front door. There are some people who don't engage on Facebook and clearly haven't logged in to the system for months. If they're not engaging then their presence on my list is only serving to boost my own popularity. Seems a little exploitative on my part. Best cull them.
With the action of removal confirmed, I've always been amazed when some people have almost immediately got in touch saying something along the lines of "Ouch" or "You fucking bastard" but never really appreciated how it is they knew what I'd done. Did they spend all day refreshing their friends list, cross-checking a list of database entries with a diminishing list of friends on their profile? Did their friends alert them via SMS or telephone call as soon as the dastardly deed had been done?
Nope. They had the "Who deleted you?" application installed on their profile. They were emailed the moment I'd clicked on the remove button. It was like an ambulance was rushing across town swerving in and out of long lines of traffic intent on alerting the victim of the callous act I had just committed. "Jon Jacob has just been an arsehole. You've been removed from his list. Quick. This is an urgent call to arms. Send him a snotty message."
Of course, not everyone responds in the same way. In fact, there has even been one ocassion when the action was carried out in the belief that I had the application installed myself. I hadn't. The only disappointment I experienced when I'd discovered I'd been removed from that person's list was the realisation that the person in question had beaten me to it. I did so want to be first.
I did try installing it yesterday afternoon after a friend had let slip on his news feed that he too had installed it. I followed my nose. Maybe I should join the throng, I thought. Maybe it would be worth my while to keep an eye on what's going on. I clicked on the checkboxes and pressed confirm. A sick, dirty feeling descended soon after.
Why did I care what people did with their friends list? Contrary to what some might think, my day to day happiness is not predecated on the number of friends I have nor whether those same friends remain my Facebook friends or not. My online persona is very different from my real-life persona anyway. I never go out of my way to offend someone either in person or online.
Consequently if someone feels they're getting tired of my virtual friendship why should I care whether or not they remove me from their friends list? Why would I want to know if they did remove me? Is it really that important?
Inherent in the almost real-time alerting capabilities of this pernicious application is the understandable desire by some to monitor exactly who they think their friends are and who are not. Such a facility is no different from statistics monitoring and, whilst some organisations may regards statistics as vital in terms of monitoring their successes and failures, personally I'd prefer to keep my sights set on being the best person I can be rather than doing what I think everyone would be like me to do.
Seconds after I'd installed the Facebook application I quickly removed it again. I don't want that kind of thought process hanging over me. I have plenty enough to deal with anyway just recently. Lets keep things simple, I thought. And, of course, there's a moral highground to occupy as a result of this action. I do so love the moral highground.
So the conclusion is short. Seeing as I don't define my day to day life with my activities in a virtual space, I really couldn't give a flying fuck if you want to remove me from your friends list or not. In fact, if you do you might do me the good service of messaging me first so that I don't have to wade through the list and cross-check against my rather paltry spreadsheet of contacts.
Even if you don't, I figure I'm well-adjusted enough to know that removing my name from a distribution list doesn't mean that much anyway. Admittedly, there are one or two people who I wouldn't help even if they were on fire, but for the vast majority of people I'm happier in my ignorance.
Go ahead. Delete me if you want. I don't care.
My camera returned today. I was terribly pleased.
Many thanks to the old chap up in Norfolk who made things happen in the camera repair department.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about Facebook just recently. It all came to a head over the weekend.
A year ago I knew little about what appeared to me as some kind of "American thing" when I saw a Facebook profile for the first time. A researcher I was working with for a brief amount of time was all animated about it. "It's brilliant," he told me, "you can keep in touch with all your friends."
What I couldn't bring myself to tell him was that I didn't really feel as though I had enough friends to keep in contact with. And anyway, what was wrong with email or - god forbid - just an ordinary letter.
Of course, as with anything I turn my nose up at with the same dismissive air as though a small creature has died a horrible death right under my nose, it wasn't long before before I submitted to the social networking platform.
Initially I found Facebook was a fun environment to be in. Soon enough people from work started joining up. We all started making friends with one other, sharing bits and pieces and having a laugh. People who sat only a few steps away from me in the same office were suddenly my friends. We were all having fun. Isn't the internet FANTASTIC?
Then came the inevitable - I started making contact with people from school. Fifteen odd years after I left the place convinced I had absolutely no fond memories, I soon found myself reminiscing about various events and people, cooing when I saw adorable faces proudly holding their offspring with equally adorable faces. Without me even realising, my school history was being rewritten as I looked at pictures and I participated in reasonably excited Facebook message exchanges.
I was insatiable however, sending out friend requests left, right and centre. I dug out people from the past, clamped on to people with the most tenuous of links and introduced all sorts of different people to what felt like a massive virtual party. It was my own little world, something I rather enjoyed, until things started to go a little sour.
In fairness, it's not all Facebook's fault. The past few months have seen my days taken up communicating with people using a variety of different methods including email, Facebook, Twitter and Messenger. I hardly ever use the telephone and in recent weeks, the only people I've been having what might be described as a normal relationship with are the people in the office (that's a total of six, last week reducing to three) and Simon my long suffering partner.
Email, Facebook, Twitter and Messenger all share the same dangerous traits for me. All of them starve me of physical contact. Without having that ability to see someone's face or hear their voice when they're talking, I invariably find myself feeling totally cut off from an individual, interpreting a tone written on a web page, a tone which inevitably is subject to the mood I am in when I'm reading it.
It's a horrible method of communication. I'm starved of the very things I love when I bounce around with people. It's when I bounce around with people that I find my mood lifted and of course, when my mood is lifted everyone else's mood is lifted too. Those who know me well will concur that there's nothing worse than Jon Jacob in a blue mood. It does rather pervade everything and everyone.
These past few weeks it's been getting a whole lot worse. In one day I received 84 emails from one colleague in a different building. Requests for changes to be made mixed in with conversations about all and sundry. We were, in effect, sitting next to each other in a virtual space, conducting our day's interactions solely via email. Sometimes the conversations were heated, sometimes the comments scathing. Occasionally the spelling has been questionable but the bottom line has been the way that electronic conversation causes me to doubt myself, my own sincerity and, at times, the sincerity of others.
It is the most depressing experience. I frequently find myself conducting multiple messenger conversations with people at the same time as responding to emails. When that goes on day after day after day it's hardly surprising my eyes feel like they've been punched and the very thought of engaging with anyone via a computer keyboard in some kind of supposedly fun "Web 2.0 space" suddenly becomes very unappealing indeed.
Where Facebook is concerned, that which I got a thrill from initially - the idea of having a bunch of friends with whom I could share all sorts of silly nonsense - is now becoming something of a source of worry. Status messages are the worst. I fill in status message updates like I butter pieces of toast or make cups of tea. They are moments of self-expression for me. The idea that someone else might possibly read them is totally lost on me. So imagine my embarrassment when, in the space of a week, three totally separate people all comment on how they enjoy reading my status updates "It's good knowing what you're up to - although they have been a little odd of late." Was I developing some notoreity ?
I admit I suddenly became a little self-conscious. Was I, in fact, becoming a Facebook addict? Did other people on "the other side" begin to wonder whether I was in trouble? Did I need to slow down? Did I need to duck out completely? Was there a chance I was developing a negative reputation?
Media-types are indoctrinated almost as soon as they receive their office pass. They're constantly being reminded that they have to "think about the audience" the whole time. Here was I thinking in exactly the same way, wondering what my group of friends *really* thought about me. Some people I never heard back from when I messaged them. What was that about ? Some people left slightly obscure messages on my wall which left me wondering if they were having a go in some kind of weird, sarcastic way. Even compliments on pictures prompted me to go into a spin. Were they being genuine or mean in an indirect kind of way?
Welcome to my world, in case you hadn't realised what world you were in as you read this.
Then, just this weekend, responding to yet another email message of which the tone couldn't be denied (and wasn't by a key jury of people including my mother and father), I logged on to Facebook and learnt of a new friendship forming between two extremely unlikely people. One was someone I really wasn't surprised by, the other caused me to draw breath for a moment. The news that a Facebook friendship had been formed put me into a spin in the same way the sight of my best mate at School giggling with his new-found-considerably-much-cooler-new-mate caused me to feel completely at sea back then.
I sat in back bedroom in our house yesterday afternoon staring out at the gardens down the hill. The sun was out and the breeze was cool. Amid the strange disappointment I felt at learning about this new friendship forming and the conclusions I reckoned I could draw from it - Why were they friends? And if they were friends how could I be friends with them at all? Have I missed something? - I began to realise that there's one thing which is the scariest and most certain of all.
Electronic communication and more specifically Facebook is ruling my life at the moment and that isn't a particularly nice situation to be in. It leaves me feeling as though I'm chained to the computer or the laptop, plumbed in to the internet every second of the day. I don't want to be waking up and thinking about Facebook acquaintances first thing in the morning, neither do I want to be judging myself according to my actions on the network tool or any other form of electronic communication.
Consequently I've started to do some maintenance. If Facebook friends are - as I see them - a little bit like having a permanent party in your front room, then from time to time its necessary to ask them to leave just so that you can get your house back in order and regroup a little bit.
If anything I want to *see* people more. I actually want to interact with people face to face. I'm tired of conducting my relationships with people solely online and having to deal with the aftermath that is interpreting what they *might* have meant with the white spaces or the possibly funny comment. I'm sick of questioning why it is I can never get a response from someone when I message them even though they're on my friends list.
Personally, I feel I need to clear my mind a bit. It's easier to share something amongst 50 people and not worry about how some people will interpret it than it is amongst nearly 300. Such is the effect that a prolonged amount of electronic activity has had on my mind.
So, please remember this. This is all about me. All about self-preservation. I don't want my friendships with people defined by facebook news feeds. If we're not friends on Facebook this doesn't mean we're not friends at all. It just means that I value friendship that much more more that I want to conduct it solely (or as near as possible) in person.
And after all, what did we do before Facebook? We used email and telephones. I rather like the idea of using email now.
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