I touched the key and....

Ok, so I'm still not done with this week's Chat magazine. You'll be glad to hear we're revisiting it and this time, I'm heading to the 'Spirit World' section, with Chat's medium, Tony. Now every week, there's a picture of a key.



The 'lucky things that happened to readers' last week were....

Kate baked the perfect chocolate cake for her son's birthday.

Peggy learnt to ride a bike (she's 60).

Maggie's dog has finally stopped chewing her shoes.

Apparently those things happened because of touching the key. Amazing. So if you're reading this and you want some amazingly good luck (if you are going to make a cake, ride a bike or get a dog, maybe) close your eyes and touch the key and report back the lucky things that happened to you as a result of it. Let me tell you about my day yesterday after I touched the key. The luckiest day ever!

I woke up at 4.15am to do an online exam, my last thing for my law degree, and my computer didn't break in the middle of it! Wow!

I made a cup of tea and didn't spill any of it on myself! Amazing!

I wasn't late for work! In fact, I was three minutes early... Lucky!

I was very tired but I didn't fall asleep standing up! Omg!

I had five coffees but didn't have a heart attack! Gosh!

Someone annoyed me at work but I didn't punch them! Brilliant!

I had a sleep when I got home from work and didn't fall out of bed! Yeh!

I made a tasty banana bread! Fantastic!

I made a nice dinner for a friend who came over! Fab!

The football was on but I read a book instead so I wouldn't get bored! Great!

The washing dried on the line outside so I had clean pyjamas for bedtime! Amazing!

You see? All you sceptics out there. I bet you're eating your words now, aren't you? See how LUCKY my day was after I touched the key? I might write in to Chat to let them know how much they helped me and they might put me in their Lucky Key column.

I heart Chat.

Freedom Internet

The next installment of our guest blogger's thought-provoking series on freedom....


After Freedom Rules, Freedom Music, Freedom Art & Freedom Literature we now come to Part 5 which I’m calling Freedom Internet. As you probably guessed I’ve been covering elements of what most people call popular “culture” (music, art, literature). I think we have to accept that the internet has now become an element of culture in its impact and coverage. Not only is it an element of the culture here in our society but it also affects most cultures in societies across the world. Wikipedia has become the ubiquitous reference tool despite not having the reliability of the printed encyclopaedia. In the past, print had to be far more rigorous in what it published but today’s Wiki sites have only to say: “No ref” or “Citation needed” to indemnify themselves against claims of being conduits of false, confidential or potentially malicious info. And here lies a far bigger issue – unsubstantiated info appears alongside verified stuff with the result that people end up not being able to tell the difference.

The first thing to notice is that “the internet” or, as its altruistic creator Tim Berners-Lee called it, the World Wide Web, does not exist as a separate entity or area like which previous freedom subjects did. Remember his original idea was simply to enable scientists to share info & research without having to resort to paper, telecoms (telex, fax, at the time) & postal connections. There is no unique place called the internet. It exists only on computer chips, in telephone lines and on many different servers across the world. It is actually an open network of linked servers with various files which can be shared. It’s a bit like a library, not of books but of other libraries all across the world.

From that point of view what you see as “on the internet” may not be what someone else sees: take China, North Korea & other nations who severely restrict the access of their inhabitants to it. Their “internet” is not the same as mine or yours. One server owner may agree to content which others may not. These server owners then become the arbiters of what will or will not be released into the public domain. Quite simply they have now become the ones who, to put it mildly, “push the boundaries”. More bluntly they have become the source of much of today’s morality and the setters of standards apparently deemed acceptable. How so? Well think of it this way - to whom are they answerable? There is no ruling body for “the internet”, no high council (or committee) who decide the rightness or wrongness of putting a particular site up for public viewing. It is completely in their hands. The internet is an open network with no controls – except the consciences of the server providers! Comments made in print, film or artistic endeavour are more rigorously scrutinised because of the potential for libel claims. Where the internet is concerned, people can just “hide” behind made up names and identities.

The potential for criminal activity is greatly increased. I don’t suppose there are many of us who have not received an email telling us that upwards of $100,000,000 is lying in a bank account somewhere in Nigeria and that we are the only ones who can unlock this vast store of money. Why would you believe a totally anonymous stranger would want to give you a huge chunk of money? Most don’t; email deleted, move on, no worries. But, and it’s a big but some DID believe it and sent their bank details. Their accounts were emptied, no-one was caught; they suffered the complete embarrassment of being taken in by the scammers. Then there are the internet sellers who simply take the money and no product arrives or, if they’re buying, receive the product and stop the payment. And so it goes on. Starting up a proper trading company takes a lot more effort than sitting in front of a keyboard and conning people. Are we surprised so much of it goes on?

Then there are the “Munchausen Syndromers”. The internet has many forums for people with various illnesses and disorders. It’s an ideal breeding ground for attention seekers. A recent UK radio prog discussed the issue and interviewed people who had gone onto cancer sufferers’ web forums pretending to have cancer and how they were managing day-to-day. Not only was their condition fictitious but they often invented other family members: girlfriends, boyfriends, children to make their situation seem believable. (I think most people will agree that it’s one thing to pretend to like sport on a sport website forum but quite another to pretend to have a terminal disease.) People were befriended and some completely taken in by the person who was not ill at all just pretending they were. (LLM’s “Chat” blog from yesterday referred to it in para 3 without actually naming it.) There is a further condition known as Munchausen by proxy but we don’t have space to go into that one here. In the internet world Munchausen’s Syndrome has become known as MBI (Munchausen by Internet). Those duped by such people are (rightly) devastated to learn that they have been conned, sometimes out of money they offered to help a situation which really didn’t exist. How can the forums’ hosts check out everyone who joins them? They rely on the trust and truthfulness of those who join to give the site the credibility so that people can feel secure revealing details, often very personal, of their condition and their feelings about it.

In real life, meeting someone talking like this you would pick up a number of signals from their body language, facial expressions and the like. On the internet all these human interface reactions are not on show. You are, or you become, what you type because no-one can see you. Only the perceptive or the ones who’ve been through a similar experience and pick up on stuff that doesn’t ring true will see through the lies. That incidentally is how a number of these cancer phoneys were found out. Very soon after they take their details down, disappear and some admitted they just create a new identity and begin the whole process again.
Recent surveys in the UK highlighted the age at which kids admitted they had first viewed pornographic material on the internet. Some admitted seeing it between 10-12 years old and from that I think we could assume that they had done so at a younger age but were wary of confessing to that so they said an age that to them seemed acceptable. Is a button asking them to confirm their age going to deter them?

Further areas of intimidation or “cyber bullying” as it’s called have resulted in a number of suicides over the past few years here in the UK and I suspect in other countries as well. How can it happen? Simply because if one person wants to call another person names or say things about them which are untrue they can. Until a complaint is made any comment is allowed, it seems. Even then the damage can be done and taking the comment down does not reverse the effect on the person hurt.

Without an overall arbiter of web content we should not be surprised that things have gone rapidly downhill in the moral sphere as well as the practical. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle; closing the barn door will be no good, the horse has clearly bolted and we’re not going to catch it. But how many really want to catch it?

Imagine standing at a bus stop and a bus comes along but it has no destination on the front. Would you get on or would you ask the driver where it is going? Even if it’s going the right way would you like it if the route was decided by the passengers shouting out where they want it to go next and not by the bus company. If I travel from say Glasgow to London I will see signs along the way telling me, as I get nearer, that London is 400, 300, 200 and so on miles away. It’s there on a blue metal road sign at the side of the motorway. I know where I’m going and I know how far it is. As you’re reading this you’re obviously on the “internet bus” and probably got on some years ago. Are you just on to enjoy the ride? A Magical Mystery Tour? Perhaps serendipity? Or do you worry about where the bus is going? Will you get off if the bus starts going down a road you don’t like and get on one that doesn’t go that way? A different service provider for example.

The internet has done so much good in many different areas and undoubtedly is greatly beneficial in the realm of study & research, commerce, communications for families and so on. That is to be welcomed and applauded. However we will reap what we sow and sadly we’re seeing a lot of negatives. Whilst I can only raise a few pointers to the current situation I hope you can see that unless controls are introduced the whole thing will continue down the road of decline. Freedom on the internet has had very serious consequences for us all. In a way it is breaking down societal norms and the differences between societies because those with unrestricted access can see what others are doing or how they are behaving. They then press their governments for change and, if successful, their society and culture changes. But to what? - To be more like ours? Why should ours be better than theirs?

Perhaps I can finish with some crucial questions: “Where do you think we as individuals and society in general are heading in this very difficult area? Are we, in reality, just being led by the internet? Can you see any signs? Is freedom helping us get there?”

Now moment of truth! If you look in a real mirror you see what you really look like. If you could look into an “internet mirror” what would you see?

Are you who you are or are you what you type?

Evil cows, Peppa Pig brides and handy tips

It's that time again, everyone! Time to delve into our favourite magazine! That's right, Chat! I know you've all come to love Chat and probably have a subscription to it so I don't really need to go over this week's best stories, because you already know them. But for the few who haven't yet joined the Chat party, here's the lowdown this week.

The main headline today is:



That's it. Straight to the point. Evil cows! "Hang em!" said a friend, in true Chat spirit. It just seems a little juvenile, calling someone a 'cow'. That's what you'd call the other girls in school when you were 14 years old and they'd been spreading rumours about you.

Well anyway, there's always the obligatory 'I fell in love but she/he fooled me' story in Chat and these aren't much different. One is a woman who pretended to have kids and look after the guy's ill mum but she didn't really have any and she was buying a load of stuff with the mum's credit card. (The story has a Shock Factor of 9.8, so you know it must be serious!) The second one was a woman who got married 14 times and stole stuff from each person then buggered off. Pretty standard. This second story is called 'Behind The Big Crime!' I feel like maybe that's been overplayed, don't you? The 'Big Crime'? If they were talking about solving the mystery behind Ted Bundy's murders, or finally arresting and charging John Wayne Gacy or the Yorkshire Ripper perhaps, I'd see what they meant. But a bigamist who stole a few thousand dollars? The 'Big Crime'? I think they might have gone a bit overboard there.

The standard 'I was fat but now I lost weight and my life is better' story came from the 'Real Life' section of the magazine. Wait a minute - isn't it ALL real life? That's the point, surely? Anyway, back to the story. A woman talks about meeting a man, loving takeaways, stuffed crust pizzas are her fave, she loves chips, she loves chocolate, she loves noodles, she eats lard for dinner and drinks it down with oil, etc etc. She gets married, she feels great, she feels happy, she loves lard etc etc. And then the wedding photos arrive and....



Now, she's pretty massive in the pictures. She tells us she weighed 15 stone. And she hadn't noticed she was big, she says. Well, I'm not saying anything, just that when I hit 11 stone, I noticed! Anyway, then she joined Slimming World and twenty years later, she'd dropped to 14 and a half stone. Yeh! Woop woop! No, it was a year later and she dropped to a reasonable size.

There are some handy tips in the 'Blimey! That's Clever!' section, that I want to share with you, to help you around the house. One is that if you wear one of your rubber gloves out faster than the other, turn the other one inside out and it will go on that hand. You'd have to wear through two pairs though, wouldn't you? To have two left ones and no right ones, so you could do this. And to be honest, who does enough washing up to wear through two whole gloves?? You'd have to be storing your one old left one for ages, to wait for the new right one to wear through and throw away so that you could revive your old left and turn it inside out. A pair of Marigolds is only about a pound, it's not like you're saving a load of money by storing your one dirty old glove in the cupboard, waiting to use it again. I don't even use Marigolds actually. I'm tough.

Another tip, called 'Easy Squeezy' tells us to use a rolling pin when the toothpaste is almost finished, to get the last few dregs out. Again, I brush my teeth upstairs and have my rolling pin downstairs. It's very unlikely that I'm going to run downstairs with my toothpaste to roll it out on the table and then go back upstairs to get one last little bit out to brush my teeth with. What's a lot more likely to happen, is that I'll chuck that tube in the bin and open the new one. Not saying it's a rubbish tip. Just saying I'll never do it.

PS. I think Chat have been reading my blog! Remember when I wrote a story to send in to Chat? Called Asparagus Fingers? Well, if this advert for next week's Chat isn't a total rip off of my story, then I don't know what is!




There is also this story coming next week. It's not really to do with anything I've talked about. I just thought you might like to see it.

The most annoying woman ever?

Ok, I've got an exercise DVD in my cupboard somewhere which is gathering dust because I refuse to watch it. I'll tell you why.

Where to start? Firstly, its Kettlebell workout which, when you start to watch it, turns out there's not a kettlebell in sight. She uses a dumb-bell, which isn't used the same way at all. She keeps telling me to hold it by the base or the handle and it's always wrong. So already I'm swallowing down extreme annoyance just to have it on.

The main reason though, is because this woman never stops talking! And I mean, never. It's constant. Just a flow of nonsense words. Here is a sample minute from the workout:

"Ok, we're going to do some renegade squats now! We're renegades! Moving side to side. They're not static squats. We don't stay still. We're renegades. They're renegade squats! Like we're in the army! We're on the move! Renegade squats! Ok, four more of these. They're really good for your thighs. Renegade squats! Working our gluts! Hold that weight! Squat! Ok, put your weight down. Great. We're just going to do some lunges. Over to your left. Put your back foot back (yes, she says that, what on earth is a 'back foot'?). Reach, reach, reach, feel the stretch. Ok, get your weight again. I want you to hold it by the handle in your left hand. And curl, curl, curl. In kettlebell training this is called a clean. So clean! Clean! Clean! Great. That's great. You're doing great. Ok, and squats. Static squats this time. We're not renegades. Amazing. You're doing a fantastic job. And legs together and twist from side to side. We're twisting from our hips here. Holding our weight. Working the waist. Yeh, working out that waist. Can you feel it? On the waist. We'll have nice toned waists. Your body shapes the way you move it. If you move it in a long lean way, it'll shape that way. Ok, let your biceps take over with this one. They'll guide the movement. That's the thing about kettlebell, your body moves in a co-ordinated way....."

On... and on.... and on....

And that's just one small section. Often I can tell what I need to do from watching her so she doesn't need all this talking. It's beyond irritating. I once stopped the video so I could sit down and write a bad review of it on Amazon. It's ridiculous.

I thought about whether to get it out this morning and have a little workout and then I remembered. I remembered how my equilibrium is always unbalanced after watching it because it annoys me so much. Maybe I should try watching it muted and putting my own music on?? Ah! I may have hit upon something here.

No...! Another..? Me..? Another award..? No!

Well, it's a tough job. But someone's got to do it.

I'd like to thank David McGowan yet again, for another award! David's book, The Hunter Inside is fabulous. I'm in the middle of reading it at the moment and can't recommend it highly enough.

I've been nominated for the Reader Appreciation Award. The rules for this one are that I must tell you all what I've been up to recently and nominate six other blogs that I enjoy reading.

Ok, what have I been up to? Well, I've taken up swimming (by 'taken up,' I mean I've been in a pool twice in the last week, I don't know if that counts) and it's quite liberating. After some time being only fully clothed in public, to wear a swimming costume and nothing else seemed a bit daunting. But I have now overcome that and am working on a way to deal with the post-swim fuzzy-hair issue that seems standard after being in the pool.

I have also been baking. In the house at the moment are chocolate, orange and ginger flapjacks, cranberry and pecan muffins, a banana bread and half of something called a German Friendship Cake. Oo and some jam, I made orange and ginger jam.

I have been reading a lot too, mainly things of the non-factual type. I had my final exams of my law degree recently and can't cope with facts for a short while in my recovery period. Fiction, novels, light-heartedness, silliness. That's where I'm at. I'm kind of in the middle of all of the following books:

F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories
The First Husband by Laura Dave
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach
Murder at the Academy Awards by Joan Rivers and Jerrilyn Farmer
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Hunter Inside by David McGowan

And now for my six nominations. Well, I guess I enjoy reading all the blogs I read so it's hard to pick out six. But I guess what I'll do is nominate my favourite new blog discoveries, so I'm not repeating anything I've said before. Ok, here goes.

1. blackberriesandbloodoranges - I love reading it because it makes me mouth water. The latest post, Strawberry and raspberry sauce in pictures, looks ridiculously good!

2. prettygirlscook - I cook, therefore I am pretty? This blog is great fun. I was extremely jealous when I read the post about the Tuscan Wine Society Tour. I wanted to run away and live in a little old farmhouse in the Italian countryside when I read it.

3. towels packed, will travel - I love reading this blog. It has adventure, excitement, exotic travel and is written well. Everything you could want to perk up a dreary day.

4. Joe's Shitty Ideas - This blog is just funny. You should read it.

5. clotildajamcracker - It's honest, it's humorous and I really like reading it. The lunchtime in my soul is written well and really enjoyable reading.

6. Where are Danny Bent's books? - This man cycled to India. Cycled. To India. On a bike. Then wrote a book about it called You've Gone Too Far This Time, Sir! It's fantastically written and a joy to read. The blog is about some of his books which are currently travelling around the world. If you're stuck for a good book to read, I'd recommend this!

Ok, that's me done. Enjoy your Sunday!!

Murder at the Academy Awards! And Donald Duck...

Yesterday's Getting Excited About Stuff was relatively straight forward = It's Joan Rivers' birthday. Get hold of a book by/about Joan Rivers and read it.

Well, there wasn't one at the library and I thought about walking along to the book shop but I was a bit knackered after my long swim (my legs and arms ache a bit today, I kind of entered a trance and just kept going then realised I'd been in there for absolutely ages!). So I headed home and looked around on Kindle on my phone and found a book by Joan Rivers called Murder at the Academy Awards! (There was also one called Men Are Stupid... And They Like Big Boobs but I thought Murder at the Academy Awards looked better.) Can you imagine anything better than a few hours with your head in a potentially-trashy probably-rubbish book called Murder at the Academy Awards?! After the onslaught of Serious Facts and Textbooks that became my life recently, I have been revelling in the more frivolous side of life. I got stuck in.

It's told from the point of view of a reporter on the red carpet trying to snatch interviews with A-listers arriving at the Oscars. It's actually told quite well. I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that Joan has a degree in English Literature so what I was expecting - a loud-mouthed Hello! magazine but longer and with more insults - was not what I got. Of course it's brash, of course the insults fly (Cameron Diaz is given the what-for for wearing a dress that 'not even Winona Ryder would shoplift') but it's done quite well. Don't get confused here, I'm not telling you all to run out and buy it because it is a work of literary genius. But it's a fun read for an afternoon off work.

I'm only half way through so the mystery of how the star of the show dies, a young actress who spends her time in and out of rehab, is yet to be solved. The hilarity of the situation that the main character is now in is entertaining reading. She's having herself admitted to a rehab clinic with a pretend addiction, so that she can dig around and find out some gossip about how the starlet may have died. And she just lost her dog when taking it to the vet. And her bodyguard loves pantsuits. And she loves plastic surgery. It's all going on in Murder at the Academy Awards!

And so to today. 9th June. Would you believe it? In 1934, on 9th June, Donald Duck made his debut in The Wise Little Hen! So today, I shall spend some time getting excited about Donald Duck. I've read up on him. I know all about him and his rivalry with Mickey Mouse. He gets over it eventually and they are the best of friends. I know all about his career in films and his educational programmes for children. I know that he struggles with his temper. I even know what his sayings are. "What's the big idea?" is his most used. I also know about his health issues, he's quite lazy and all his friends think he needs to get some exercise. But one time he knocked a shark out with one punch so he's still pretty strong, even if he is lazy....

I hope you enjoyed that little fact-onslaught about Donald Duck. I feel we would all benefit a little from knowing more about Donald.

So today I am going to dress as a sailor. Well, not really. I'm just going to wear white trousers and a blue jumper. And say "What's the big idea?" to people. And maybe I'll watch The Wise Little Hen if I can find it on Youtube.

When not to fall asleep (and a little bit of Joan Rivers)

Back to my gap year today for some handy hints on how not to behave when in a position of importance.

We ran a newspaper, Lucy and I, which was the only town newspaper. It was important that we reported all the local events as people in the town were quite proud of their little local paper. I can't tell you how many HIV/AIDs workshops we went to. Everything that was happening, we were at.

So the biggest and best event of the year had arrived. Independence Day! Everyone had been looking forward to it for months. Plans were under way, the kids from the local schools had fantastic little routines organised, the mayor would be there, the country's national football team would be there. It would be AMAZING.

The day before we had been at the local Crayfish Derby, which was massive fun. But it was quite a way out of town and we had had to leave midway through to walk back into town for a meeting about youth empowerment and small businesses. After the meeting we had then walked back out of town, quite a trek, to the Crayfish Derby to finish reporting on that. Walking under the sun is quite tiring.

The next day, we woke up early to go to the Independence Day celebrations, which were just at the bottom of the hill we lived on. Easy. We arrived, found some seats in the stadium and waited. It's quite normal to wait a while for most stuff but it takes a little bit of getting used to when you first go there. They played a bit of Celine Dion, they loved her there. Some kids did some dancing. We waited. The sun beat down on our faces. We feebly made notes in our notebooks. And kept waiting.

And then we made that fateful decision. We needed some water, we were far too hot, we were going to faint, it was urgent! We left our seats and saw a good friend arriving. He looked puzzled about why we were walking out, not in. We explained that we'd be back in a mo. We just needed some water. We were far too hot. See you soon!

We staggered up the hill, gasping. When we got home we gulped tons of water and sat down for a second to stay out of the heat until we had recovered.... And then we woke up, disorientated, and ran out of the house, and looked down the hill. And the celebration was over! Oops! We'd been asleep for the whole day!

We had to write about it for the newspaper though. Everyone would be expecting it. And it had to be front page, it was the biggest event of the year. Damn.

We had about three photos of the kids dancing before the celebrations had started. We blew them up really big so they took up loads of space, meaning we didn't need to write as much. We worked in a few of the local schools so we knew they had been organising a special dance routine, so we mentioned that. We had a fairly good idea of what the mayor had probably said, given that we had sat in on a lot of speeches she had made. We talked about people who had been there, like the football team and a few others we had seen before we left. And summed it up by saying it was a great day and loads of fun! Then put it on the front page and hoped no-one would notice. Loads of stuff must have happened that we didn't mention. Thankfully they didn't notice but I still wonder how we got away with it!

The moral from today is = Don't fall asleep when there's something of national importance happening and you write the most popular newspaper in town.



Feedback from yesterday's Getting Excited mission, which was to celebrate all things Filipino by wearing red and blue (two of the colours on the flag) and saying Hola to greet people (NOT how they say hello but there's a Spanish connection and I figured people would at least know what I was talking about) and by having fish for dinner (I remember eating a lot of fish in the Philippines). So in my not-very-spectacular way, I did all of these things and, while it didn't cause any great variation in my day, it did make me think of my friend who's birthday it is every time I did something. And that was nice. Because she's a nice friend. It was nice to be more conscious of reasons why the day was different to the others, instead of being all same-old-same-old.

Today I have two things to get excited about. One is that I'm going swimming when I've finished writing this... twice in a week after years of not even owning a swimming costume! I'm doing well. The other is that it's Joan Rivers' birthday today. (And the world's smallest man, but I can't do very much in terms of getting excited about that. I'm already quite short.) So Joan Rivers it is. On my way back from the swimming pool, I'm going to stop in the library and see if they have any of her books and I'll spend some time this afternoon being excited about Joan Rivers' birthday by reading a book she wrote. Maybe I'll get plastic surgery in honour of her as well....