Hello. What you've just witnessed was me taking a break from blogs for the month of January. Not only did I take a break from blogs, I also took a break from social networking sites. Oh yes. And I feel much better for it too. I knew that something had to give when I my drumming tutor told me I was becoming obsessed with Facebook. He could tell I was becoming obsessed because I was checking Facebook on my phone in the middle of a drumming lesson.
So come January 1st I deactivated my Facebook account and did the same with Twitter. The trouble with Twitter is that you can't deactivate your account without deleting it. So I did. I have to say that I don't miss it. Twitter is something that I don't feel I've ever really come to grips with. It's okay for finding out about stuff, but it's pretty unokay if you're not particularly interested in X Factor or Question Time as your Thursday and Saturday night Twitter feed will be clogged up with people quacking on about both. I believe this is called, ugh, 'sofalising'. I'd call it 'a bag of wank.' I can't pay attention to TV shows and use my mobile internet device at the same time. Sorry. So I am no longer a Twitterer, which probably comes as a great relief to people who followed me.
As for Facebook, I bumped into a friend at Forest three weeks ago who asked me why I wasn't updating my Facebook profile any more. I told him it was because I was having a break from it. He replied "To be honest, you were getting on my tits a bit." Which I took as meaning that he thought I was a little verbose and gobby. I liked his honesty, it's made me look at how I handle myself on Facebook. Although that friend has now been deleted from my Facebook friends. There's being honest and there's being a honest. If he don't like it, he can fuck himself*, just because he writes about Forest for The Observer....
I have to say it's all been rather freeing. I've watched films, listened to LPs, practised a lot more on the drums and got through tons of stuff on my TV hard drive. You should try it, and I'll definitely do it again.
Anyway, as for the blog I've decided not to blog as much and change what I blog about. I mean who wants to read another bloody blog about the queue at the bank or supermarkets or the neighbours? I don't, especially when others do it so much better than me. I also won't be blogging as much as instead of working for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, I now work 10 hours a day 4 days a week so I won't have so much time.
But have this, it's great. I wonder what they'd have been like if they hadn't spent the mid to late 70s traipsing around the stadiums of America as Aerosmith's support act but doing more stuff like this:
*Not really, yeah I've deleted him but he's still a sound lad.
Have added a Twitter widget to this blog. If any of you would like to, ugh, 'follow' me on twitter I'm @BrightAmbasador. Though why anyone is interested in anything I've got to say is beyond my comprehension.
Anyway, have this, it's Friday and you need to get yer arse onto a dancefloor. They never bettered it:
Well, not much to report here. You'll have to get used to more sporadic blog posts as I don't enjoy all the internet access that I used to, and an immediate family member is going through a pretty major health scare at the minute.
Anyroad, have you seen - the incorrectly-titled - Chris Moyles' Quiz Night? If you haven't, then don't. A bigger dog's breakfast of an 'entertainment' show I've yet to see. I've nothing against ugly people on the telly, but I am against ugly cretins on the telly. What I have been enjoying on the telly though are I've Never Seen Star Wars (and in Fawlty Towers and Dark Side of the Moon, Rory McGrath picked two things I'm a bit of an expert on), Genius (even though I've never previously had much time for Dave Gorman). I've also been watching - the incorrectly-titled - Monty Halls' Great Escape. If you've not seen it, and I don't think any of you will have done, it's about a rather enthusiastic bloke who chucks in his life for six months and goes to live in a crofter's bothy on the west coast of Scotland. Very idyllic. I reckon I could manage that, I don't mind my own company and as long as I had my iPod and stack of decent books I'd be in my element. Besides, the local village, Applecross, seems to have a ready supply of buxom, red-cheeked women who were all clamouring for his attention. I found that he was rather in love with his dog though, which was a worry.
I've finished Stuart Maconie's new book. For a travel book it left me oddly not wanting to visit many of the places in it. I suppose that's because I come from a smallish town in 'Middle England' and that's, er, what it's about. When you come from somewhere like this you tend to reach out either for the anonymity of the urban sprawl or, being British, for the taste of fish and chips on the seafront. He bigged-up Bath and Leamington Spa, two places I've been to myself and enjoyed immensely. He's cock on about Grantham though. I worked there for four years, and it's a really strange place (about a half mile down the same road as Thatcher's birthplace sits on, which was his reason for going). It's as though someone built a town in the middle of a bypass. He goes to Cambridge, which is somewhere I've never been and always wanted to go to. I love Pink Floyd and want to go and immerse myself in the fabled Grantchester Meadows. There's a lovely Floyd promo film for the song Scarecrow, which features Syd Barrett and co frolicking on the Meadows. The colours are gorgeous. I might do that over the Easter break, go to Cambridge, it's not much more than an hour's drive from here.
I've also been dabbling in Spotify. I wanted to listen to a new album by a band called The Decemberists, and Spotify gave me it right there and then (I can highly recommend the album, by the way, if concept albums about infanticide and burying the bodies in enchanted woods is your thang). The other day I fancied listening to Deep Purple's Fireball, instead of rummaging around looking for the CD I just pulled up Spotify and set Fireball playing. Will it spell the end for purchased music? Not in my world, I like the feeling of ownership.
I watched Quantum of Solace on DVD last week, someone lent me it. Oh dear. I have to say I thought it was terrible. I couldn't really follow what was going on. It just seemed to be a load of action sequences stitched together with the faintest whiff of a story. There were no laughs, no Q, no Miss Moneypenny, no gadgets. The only light relief came with GemmaArterton's character Strawberry Fields. That's right, they're naming Bond girls after Beatles' landmarks. What next? Penny Lane? Abi Rhode? And why can Bond seemingly control any vehicle? He was a master in a speedboat, a car, a commandeered motorcycle and a WWII DC3 aircraft.
As I was a Twitter denier, I've gone over to the dark side and joined. I knew it was a mistake the minute I did it and tried to delete my account. It wouldn't let me, "Twitter is stressed at this moment and can't perform that function." I've tried deleting it since and it won't let me. So I'm stuck with it. Why do they treat you like an imbecile? "Twitter is stressed", no it isn't, it's a website, it doesn't get 'stressed'. It's like those smoothie bottles that say stuff like "We've packed thirteen pieces of fruit in here because of all the yummy goodness, and we like to make sure you get your five-a-day because mummy can't be there all the time to make sure you do". I'm not a child. So if anyone fancies following my mundane life on Twitter, then you can go and find me.
Just a quick thing about the Radcliffe and Maconie show on the 6th of April. Andy Partridge is on it and, if his previous appearances on Radcliffe shows are anything to go by, he makes for very entertaining listening.
Anyway, must go, but here's what I've been listening to just lately:
I love late 60s Rolling Stones, it's a goldmine, Sympathy for the Devil, Gimme Shelter, Jumpin' Jack Flash, this one's my favourite though.
Love this new single. Everyone says they here Kate Bush and Goldfrapp in this, weirdly, I hear All About Eve.
This has had a few plays on R & M. It should have been Britain's entry for this year'sEurovision, unfortunately, he's Norwegian, or summat.
Oasis don't pull any trees up musically. But I love this, they can still release a decent rock single every now and again.
Also listening to something called Kardomah Cafe by a band called The Cherry Boys, which was on the radio the other day. There's no You Tube clip for that though.
...now I'm on the horns of a dilemma. Christine Bleakley v Charlie Brooker. They both enrich my life but one's pro-Twitter and the other one's anti. Can I just read Twitter without actually saying anything myself? Because I'd quite like to 'follow' Brooker.
Anyway, this popped up on my iPod today during a shuffle. I hadn't heard it in ages and it was most welcome. Especially as Metallica use it as their intro music and I'm going to see them the week after next. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because normally when I hear it I know I'm going to feel the full force of James Hetfield's wrath in a few minutes. It has everything I love about EnnioMorricone's spaghetti western music: Twanging electric guitars, squealing trumpets, a wailing bint, a clanging bell and a huge choir. Pretty good visuals too, courtesy of Sergio Leone and Eli Wallach.
Well, the votes have been cast, the results counted and not verified, and the verdict is that out of ten of you who could be arsed to vote, six of you said you'd follow me on Twitter. Which is bad news for six people as I won't be Twittering any time soon.
I don't know how to access the internet on my phone (which is surely essential for any serious Twitterer; I'm so thick, aren't I?), my life is nowhere near interesting enough for anyone to want to 'follow' it on Twitter (my life bores me so it's bound to bore anyone else) and when you look at what Stephen Fry posts on Twitter (like 'I've just finished a day's filming at Twentieth Century Fox studios in Los Angeles'), then what chance do you stand of getting yourself noticed?
Not only that, there was a Twitter item on The One Show last night and ChristineBleakley said she didn't Twitter and didn't see the point of it. So that's that. I use The Bleakley as a kind of life coach, even though she doesn't know it. Gyles Brandreth did the item and he Twitters. I could rest my case right there.
The thing is, is it just fad? In 2001 it was Friends Reunited (which I may have made myself look a complete tit on last week, but never mind), 2004 it was eBay, 2006 was MySpace's year and a couple of year's ago it was Facebook.
Now I've come to quite like Facebook. You can post videos on there without clogging up your blog. There's some fantastic pictures of me as a kid and adolescent on there and it's enabled me to come back into contact with people I haven't seen for years. As well as come into contact with charming and witty people who share my enthusiasm for early 80s footballers and looking through the CD sale at Sainsbury's.
So, you Twitterers, enjoy yourself and think of all the fun I'm missing out on.
What gives with Twitter? Over the past week it's suddenly been all over the media. Much to my amusement they had a Celebrity Twitterers feature in the Mirror last week. One of the so-called celebs was Will Carling. Now by all means Twitter if that's your thang but at least have the gall to put something interesting on there. One of Carling's entries was 'Taking the dog out'. Phew, the life of an ex-England rugby captain and Royal adulterer, eh? I don't know how he copes.
A lot of this has come about because Stephen Fry is a compulsive Twitterer. Why, only this week he was trapped in a lift and Twittered on about it to the 750 million people who follow him on Twitter. Now I'm not good in a crisis involving myself, I tend to panic. And although I'm not a lift-phobic, I do have a sense of relief when the bell goes, the doors open and I can step out of one. So the last thing I'm going to do if I'm trapped in a lift is to start Twittering (besides, I have an internet-enabled phone, but don't ask me how to access the internet on it). In reality, what would happen to me is that I'd be crying and pissing myself so much the lift would gradually fill up with water so that only my head would be exposed at the top of the lift carriage, like in a disaster film. And why would you want to follow the minutiae of someone's life like that? You might as well move in with them. Things came to a head last night when my preferred Forest blogger announced that he was going to Twitter match updates from the stands. When I go to football I go to watch the match and have a laugh with my mates. Not to stand there staring into a mobile phone all night Twittering. Mind you, I'd have loved to see some of last night's entries after half time, probably something like "Oh God, I'm going to jump off Trent Bridge if Kris Commons scores" leading on to "Oh shit, goodbye cruel world..."
And what if nobody wants to follow you on Twitter? How depressed would you be? Who the hell would be interested in what I've got to say: 07.00 Got up for a shit, shave, shower and shampoo 07.15 Preparing porridge. 08.00 Having a lazy wank 08.15 Watching Freshly Squeezed on Channel 4 Plus One 09.30 Watching To Buy or Not to Buy 10.00 Having a lazy wank 12.00 Preparing dinner. Heinz Ravioli on toast I think See? How mundane is that? Let's have a little straw poll, who'd follow me on Twitter? I bet nobody. Anyway, I'm a Faceberk man, and going on Twitter would be like sleeping with your best mate's missus.
