Which month I started blogging again?
*rubs chin*
Tag Archives: blogging
Are Social Networks Making Us *LESS* Social?
With the changes that are due to be implemented on Facebook and my consideration for actually deleting my Facebook account once these changes are implemented, it got me thinking about the way in which I’d connect with people before Twitter and Facebook took such a stranglehold on our online socialising.
One way was obviously keeping a blog. I know that my family and friends could come and visit my blog and see what I was up to at any point. And here (in the blogosphere) I am in (what feels like anyway, perhaps I am delusional?) more control of what I type and who sees it. Okay, perhaps corporate bots can come and trawl my site – but they are going to be less motivated to do that when all the info for millions (if not billions) of people at the touch of a button via social networks.
One method I’d use was email. And now here comes the scary bit, I can’t remember the last time I actually sat down and typed out an email to a friend. I mean a proper “How are you? I’m going good. This has happened to me…blah, blah, blah, etc” type email. I’m lucky if I send out one email a month now, and that’s normally an enquiry to an online seller.
So that had me questioning just HOW social I am using ‘social networks’. I mean, yes, I read all about my families doings on Facebook, but most of the time that’s all I’m doing. I’m not conversing with them. I might say “like” or add a quick comment to what they’ve said, but that’s it. It hardly feels like being social with them or that I’m REALLY knowing what’s going on back home.
Perhaps it’s time to go back to emails and blogging? Well, I am slowly starting the blog again, but I’m not even sure my family reads this (if any of my Oz family see this post, leave a comment so I know! – perhaps I’ll email and ask? Lol).
Expect some emails in your Inbox soon. You never know, it may just make your day – and will be a change from all that spam!
The Internet gets more sinister every day…
It’s All Coming Along Quite Nicely…
Protected: Us
Hershey Kisses – Choc Vomit?
Hershey’s Kisses come to Britain
For those that love them, they’re a halcyon taste of childhood. But that’s not everyone. Will you be making a special trip to buy Hershey’s Kisses?
Hershey chocolate Kisses. Photograph: AlamyNew chocolate is one of those things (like new cheese, new restaurants and, I am told, new shoes) which cannot fail to pique the interest. However cheap, sweet or low in cocoa solids it may be, a frisson of curiosity accompanies each innovation. New shapes and variations must be tasted, if only to be tossed, barely chewed, over one’s shoulder on the way to Paul A Young’s. Until now. Hershey’s Kisses are coming to the UK and that is something I absolutely cannot get in bed with.
The fact that the diddy conical filth-bombs are on a list (as yet unconfirmed) of Hershey’s products expected to be sold exclusively by Asda next year may explain, finally, why Mum’s gone to Iceland. They have a distinctive character, described by Paul Richardson in his history of chocolate as “a piquant background flavour of something faintly sour, cheesy, or overripe, what chocolate experts call a ‘barnyard’ taste.”
As anyone who has plunged their hand excitedly into a crackling bagful brought back from America (or a posh UK food shop with a penchant for kitsch) will know, there is nothing like the disappointment of discovering that a food which boasts an impressive amount of cultural glamour has all the flavour notes of regurgitated milk.
It’s not just the taste of ming, though powerful, which is objectionable. Given its innocent moniker, the Hershey’s Kiss, introduced in 1907 and trademarked in 1924, can pose a surprising threat to our physical and emotional wellbeing. They are the source, of course, of some NSFW innuendo. But more importantly, as a child our own Lucy Glennon drew blood at the sharp end of one. And there is an episode of Supernanny US in which a family, ripped apart by grief, misguidedly offer the children “candy” if they kiss a picture of their recently-departed grandpappy. I have a distinct feeling that that candy was a Kiss.
Richardson also notes that tastes in confectionery set up cultural barriers as rigid as religion, and we wouldn’t argue with that. Homesick Brits eager for a taste of home have been disgusted to find that our own Cadbury’s Dairy Milk has a foreign taste and texture in Ireland, America and elsewhere (the betrayal is compounded, of course, by the fact that Hershey makes Cadbury’s products in the US). But just as many of us struggle to see what is wrong with a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, Americans (even gourmet ones) brought up with Hershey’s Kisses seem unable to know the taste that dominated every Valentine’s Day mini-gift and Halloween treat for what it is.
Iron Chef Judy Joo, erstwhile of the Saveur magazine test kitchen and the Gordon Ramsay empire, was brought up in New Jersey, where she fell in love with Hershey’s Kisses. “They’re totally an American nostalgia thing for me,” she says. “When I was little we used to let them melt in our mouths and lick our lips with the chocolate and give everyone chocolate kisses. I love them. I used to make peanut butter and kisses cookies with a little Hershey’s Kiss snuggled in the middle.” She doesn’t know when she last ate one, but remembers, “I had a special way of eating them. I used to rub the pointy top against my tongue in a circle until it was gone and then eat the round sphere that was left in one bite. Maybe you’ll like them more if you eat them that way!”
Nice try, Judy, but in a chocolate-based game of snog, marry, avoid, Hershey’s ain’t getting no kisses from me. Is anyone prepared to defend these tapering terrors?
Blog Import!
I also meant to say, so that the new site doesn’t look so sparce, I imported my Blogger posts to here.
I didn’t hold out much hope for a success but I think Posterous have done a mighty good job at it!
The Noughties (for Fun Monday)
This weeks Fun Monday task was to go back over the personal highs and lows of the noughties. I thought it a good opportunity to reflect on a decade so decided to take part. So here are my personal highs and lows of the last 9 years, eleven months and several days…
The Highs: * Getting Chrissy in 2000. She has been one of the best things in the last decade. I needed to have a “substantial” pet. Prior to getting her we had a budgie called Dusty. Although he was lovely bird, a bird hardly equates to a cat. I had a cat in Australia, Tiger and she was my first cat, at 21 years of age, so to find myself without a cat several years later was a bit much to take. But along came Chrissy and all was fine. She’s just had her 10th birthday and I love her more than ever (even though she can drive me up the wall!). * Home visits to Oz in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2007. Living 12,000 miles away from where I grew up hasn’t been easy at times but regular home visits have helped greatly over the years. I know I’ve been lucky. I’ve had the opportunity to go home five times in the last 10 years and every visit has meant so much. As my mum gets older, the visits have felt more imperative. With the last two visits I was able to stay for several months. It has meant everything to have been able to go home so regularly. * Winter Christmases and Guy Fawkes/ Halloween fireworks. When growing up I was always jealous of two things. One, to do with my birthday falling on Halloween (not much significance in Australia when I was growing). The other, to do with the northern hemisphere ideal of a white, wintry Christmas. Well my first year living in the UK both of these jealousies were abated. I experienced my first “significant” Halloween with a mini celebration at a theme park (it wasn’t good, but the idea of it was). I also experienced Guy Fawkes (bonfire night) for the first time and realised that I could orchestrate the notion of fireworks into my birthday celebrations. Guy Fawkes and Halloween sort of blend into one another here, being less than one week apart. So it’s nice to have the excuse of believing I have fireworks for my birthdayThankfulness (Just For Today)
As there’s still a little of Thanksgiving left and I didn’t do the Fun Monday thing, I just want to list the things I am thankful for – TODAY. Aside from all the obvious things (family, friends, etc) I just want to count these in.
I am thankful that I have enough hair that when I got a “trim” earlier today (with Wahl hair trimmers) that, having had a number 3 setting trimmer used on me, I still have hair on my head (be it only 0.5 cm long!). I am also thankful that I am alive another day (I think)… Although sort of already mentioned, I am thankful for having Em and Chrissy in my life. They both make my day, in differing ways. I am thankful for all my other peeps in my life too… I am thankful I live in the western world and that the most stressing aspect of my day was having my hair cut too short and having to make white sauce from scratch. I am thankful that I can read. I love my books and I doubt I’d enjoy listening to audio books as much if I only had hearing to rely on. I am thankful for my eyes… I am thankful for all my techno gizmos too. Lastly, one very indulgent future thank… That Christmas is going to be a TRULY “David Tennant” Christmas. What, with two Doctor Who episodes over the holidays, Hamlet on TV, a guest appearance on the Catherine Tate Christmas Show, an appearance on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, an appearance on QI, and reading the Bedtime Story on CBeebies, not to mention the cinema release tomorrow of Glorious 39 and of St Trinian’s 2 (help me if I go and see it at the cinema!) a week before Xmas, I’ll be on DT OVERLOAD! So thanks Mr GivingFun Monday – my first.
I was this on Wendishness’s's’s's’s (sorry, lol) blog and thought I’d have a go.
Here’s the deal. There is an exercise involved, as follows: (1) Share something which you wish your readers would know about you. It could be something you feel you might need to clarify/ share, etc. (2) Ask three questions to your readers, and I mean all readers, whether participants of Fun Monday or not. The questions should be generic so that all your readers can answer them and that it will help you get to know your readers more. So here goes… 1) I have an abhorrent fear of escalators. Yes folks, you read correctly, escalators! It’s something that’s manifested itself later in life and I’m not really sure what brought it on. Perhaps it started when I used to visit my brother when he was working at the NRMA offices in Sydney (nearest station is Wynyard which had a VERY tall wooden escalator). I used to take the escalator out of Wynyard station and because it was such a TALL escalator and I’m acrophobic, it used to unsettle me a little, but I was okay. Then I heard about a fire that happened at Wynyard station. Just looking now there doesn’t seem to be any evidence for one. But I’d heard there had been one, on the escalators (and if you look at the Wikipedia entry here for escalators, you’ll see Wynyard still have the original Otis wooden tread ones, the ones used at King’s Cross station in London where there WAS a fire in 1987, killing 31 people). From then on, I really started to dread taking the escalators. When I’d arrive at the station on the train, I’d take the escalator up to street level (sometimes), but when I’d return to the station, I’d ALWAYS take the stairs. My fear is so strong, I actually PREFER lifts! I would gladly take a lift any day over having to ride an escalator. The longer and higher the escalator, the more scared I am, as it then combines with my acrophobia to make me have panic attacks. Just looking at some of the images on the Wikipedia entry for escalators was enough to have me panicking. London is the worst. Travelling the tube is a NIGHTMARE for me. The escalators are SSSOOO fast, and that is another element of the fear – the faster the escalator, the harder I find it to get on. And if the escalator is going down, and is tall…I just see myself trying to get on and falling all the way down. It didn’t help things that on my wedding anniversary in 2008, I DID have a fall down an escalator. It wasn’t a very tall one either, but it was fast, so it just helped to heighten my fear. I can’t describe to you how fast the ones on the tube go. Imagine standing there in front of a an escalator and every time you go to step on, you’ve missed the step. A step goes by within two thirds of a second, and although granted, the steps stay flat for about one metre, because my fear is SO heightened, I just don’t believe I’m ever going to get on a level step quick enough. Then add the element of endless passengers stepping on/off the escalator, people beside you clambering and running down them to the left of you (something I could NEVER do, even for a million pounds). Most of the time I have to wait until the masses leave so I can try and get on myself as many times I have to abort my attempts and that would be nigh on impossible with a crowd behind me. I let Em go ahead and sometimes when I abort my attempts, she comes back down the stairs to help me. My favourite tube station is Covent Garden as there is access via lifts and stairs only. The stairs are spiral, and I’ve been down them before, and vertigo sets in…but I *STILL* prefer that to the escalators! I wish I was healthier, as I’d take the stairs more often. But some of the tube stations are SO far below ground, the stairs would be 100 metres long. I’d never cope! The WORST is “down” escalators that aren’t working. I had that just recently when we went to Weymouth. We were at Victoria, having something to eat before getting the coach home, and the small escalator inside the food hall had stopped. Luckily it was a small one, but I still very gingerly made my descent. Enough of escalator talk (before I have a panic attack). 2) Gawd, I’m not sure what questions to ask. *What was the best thing you did yesterday?*Who is your hero or the person you most admire in your life?
*If you had the opportunity, would you move from where you live now, and if so, where would you move to? PS: Whoops. Think I lost the premise there…FUN Monday…oh, well.
Apathetic Lethargy.
I haven’t been spending much time on the Internet of late (as you might have been able to tell). I haven’t even updated my blog too regularly (oh, the irony) recently either.
I’m just counting the days until Weymouth. I didn’t realise until I booked it just how much I’m longing for a trip away. I feel like I’m sort of on hold until I go. Apathy and lethargy (well one could argue I’ve ALWAYS had the lethargy) are setting in and I don’t really want them to. I suppose the non interest in the Internet is sort of spurred on by my “nothing to report” status. I haven’t really updated twitter or Facebook much lately. I’m just at home all the time, lulling about, doing not much. Maybe I’m just a bear readying herself for hibernation? The weather has turned quite cool in the last 48 hours. You can feel autumn in the air. I’m really not ready for it this year! It doesn’t feel like we’re going to have any kind of Indian summer, so it’s going to make the autumn and winter a LOOONG drawn out season to go through. Any other time I’d cope, but this year was such a non-start with summer, I don’t think I’m going to cope well with a long drawn out winter. Even the things I normally look forward to, my birthday, Guy Fawkes night (November 5th), are filling me with dread this year. I’m going to be 39. Not much to cheer about there, and with no car to get us to a display, fireworks on November 5th are hardly going to cheer me up. This year it feels like the death knell. Anyway, this has descended into something quite dark (for me anyway) and I just was writing to say I was alive (in theory) but that there were not many creative juices flowing in me lately and that our time in Weymouth just cannot come soon enough!

