Meeting Up

We had a lovely new family in church last Sunday all the way from Belfast. It was great to meet them and at the same time slightly odd.

In the midst of all the warnings about meeting people on the internet it is worth remembering that we often make friends in real life by hanging out where people hang out and going back there to continue the conversation.

If you go to the same cafe at the same time every week you will probably make some acquaintances. Likewise health clubs, holidays and holding sporting season tickets.

Ali and I bumped into each other about ten years ago (we can't remember exactly when). We were both bloggers in the relatively early days of blogging and left comments on posts each other had written.

As Facebook came along we became Facebook friends. I recall being vaguely aware that I ought to meet people I had taken this step with. But in the sense that Facebook is a place to share more personal information we began to see photos of each other, become aware of each other's families and, in a gesture of absolute connection, Ali took Jesus on Wheels on a few adventures. (He now has an alarming habit of singing Irish rugby songs when bored.)

So, in this new way the world works, we became friends before we had met. And although we could never be certain, we became pretty sure that we would like to meet, that neither of us was an axe-murderer using an alter-ego, and that this had somehow become a 'proper' friendship before we had ever been in the same room.

And of course, seeing as how I am male and she is female and we are both married, it was important to involve our partners in knowledge of this friendship.

So Ali and her family came to town, being nearby for a rugby match, and afterwards we shared a hasty lunch before they had to get a plane back.

I'm sort of writing this as a corrective to the idea that you should never meet people you bump into on the internet. We got on well, it was a bit like old friends and a bit like new ones.

Quote of the Day

1209. Socrates, in Plato's Phaedrus, argued that the invention of writing meant people would '...cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful'. It seems likely that we'll get over internet distraction soon enough.
(Oliver Burkeman. Guardian Weekly 21/6/13)

Day Off in Poshland

It is quite a long time since I found myself in a library at a different town using a strange computer to access the internet. I think internet cafes may be consigned to history soon, replaced by wi-fi and personal devices. Hard to believe I am feeling a strange sense of nostalgia for the internet cafe.

Witney is a strange little town. It is quite prosperous, although you might expect this for the Prime Minister's constituency. Away from the market town main street there are a couple of shopping centres, both clone town specials but one Crew/Monsoon/M&S and a showcase type cinema next to a Franky and Bennys, the other Robert Dyas, W.H Smiths and Cargo.

Found a belting little cafe for a full English breakfast and coffee. Bit pricey but atmosphere bang on right down to the 1980s Dire Straits, Z Z Top and Depeche Mode sound-track.

Have bought three books and three T-shirts and now, by the wonders of social media, may be meeting an old friend for a drink at lunch-time.

I had forgotten what a good thing it is to get out of town on my day off. It is also cheaper, although involving an early start, if I join my wife on a jaunt to wherever she is going. This is what I have done today and can enjoy being a complete stranger in town wandering about a bit.

The staff at the library have been very welcoming to a stranger and have logged me on easily, free and without question. I love my country sometimes.

Tonight we are meeting up with other friends from around the country, this time in Oxford, to have a meal and a drink and then see Milton Jones at the New Theatre. Hoping for a bit of amusement to start my holiday week.

I don't know quite why it is but I often seem to find that my phone, looking alive and healthy first thing in the morning, often turns out to need re-charging on a day when I am out and about without a charger. This is one of those days. I have a spare charger in my car and two in my study. None with me and not my car today either.

I found an M and Co (previously Mackays) who sell T-shirts I like. They were priced at £7 but on a display saying reduced to £5. When I came to pay there was 20% off making the bill £12. It is not the first time this has happened at this store. They need a policy, a bit like selling travel, of working out how much people are prepared to pay and taking that off them. I like these T-shirts and would probably have paid £25 for three.

Still, I then bought three books at about £8 each and it seems to me that books are worth twice as much as T-shirts so that is a bit of a result for small town economics.

My breakfast was massive and continues to satisfy me so it could be a no lunch just a pint day. Brilliant.

Policing the Internet

When the motorway system was developed in this country there were not, at first, central crash barriers or speed limits. My Dad took the family for a spin on the newly opened M1 (the excitement we had of driving to Watford Gap service station is hard to believe) and, seatbeltless, we did a ton in a Ford Zephyr (beyond belief).

Designers of motorways either had no idea how stupid people would be or simply didn't anticipate the problem of folk trying to do a U-turn with traffic coming in the opposite direction at 100mph. Amazingly, nobody noticed that travelling at 100 mph two feet from a piece of glass that may stop suddenly was a bit daft. Welcome seat belts, central reservations, air bags and crumple zones with gratitude to those who were scarred to make us realise we needed them.

This is about the internet folks. It's a new motorway. We have no idea what safety measures we will need to build in. In fifty years time we will look back with amazement at the way we travelled on it unprotected.

Two recent stories illustrate this.

Paul Chambers was found guilty of sending a 'menacing electronic communication.' His 'crime'? Back in January, frustrated at an airport being closed, he tweeted: 'Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a weekend and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing your airport sky-high!'

In a show of solidarity many tweeters have retweeted his message, in effect saying 'Fine me too.'

The problem with this conviction, and I hope Chambers gets off on appeal, is that in order to find the communication menacing, a judge had to be convinced that an average, reasonable person would be alarmed. And look at the tweet with its exclamation marks, its style and, of course, its lack of anonymity. Any reasonable person can see it's a joke and not alarming. Yes they can your honour. Not very funny, but that is not the point. Effectively Chambers was saying to his followers, probably mainly friends and acquaintances, that he was frustrated. No more; no less.

We seem to have another out-of-touch judge moment to put alongside 'Who is Gazza?' and 'Are the Beatles a popular beat combo?'

Offences committed within popular culture have to be judged within that culture. Judges often seem to come from elsewhere.

To our second story. I gather Bishop Pete Broadbent is now on gardening leave after an unfortunate republican rant on royal weddings. Catch up here. It may be true that the next royal wedding will have a short shelf life. It may not. The only decent test of prophecy is whether or not it comes true. Notwithstanding the fact that it is possible to wish a royal couple well in their marriage whilst hoping that one day we might become a republic, the Bishop's comments could, reasonably, have been expected to cause offence and he has had to apologise.

No policing or rules will ever stop this sort of thing happening. Only self-awareness and the understanding, repeat it and retweet it again and again until tired, that something put on the internet is there for everyone to see for ever. You may regret that. So might I.

The Steve Tilley Daily

A friend followed the links through the Steve Tilley daily (see right hand side-bar) and clicked on one or two of the adverts and found content he thought I probably wouldn't want to endorse. Too right.

So a warning, sensitive readers. If you are offended by satire, deep sarcasm, irony and other stuff found on the internet occasionally then don't click through.

It is a newspaper made up of the stories linked or written by those people I follow on twitter. Now needless to say I follow people on twitter not simply because I like them or agree with them but because they challenge me or stretch me also. In trying to make me laugh some may offend you. They don't offend me because I've found being offended a terrible, terrible waste of time. I commend this attitude to you.

New for the Noughties 7

In the early days of my attempting to write fiction, about 1993 onwards, I used to book a day off work, collect together my stuff and amble down to Leamington library. I had an idea for a book set in an old house near where I lived which was, by then, just a heap of rubble but had had an interesting history. Helpful librarians dug out old reference books and maps for me.

With the onset of the internet a few methods for searching online grew up. Yahoo had a good one and 'Ask Jeeves' looked for a while as if it would become the best. Then, one day, someone said across the desks, 'Have you tried Google?' I did. Within months it had become the only search engine I ever used and it still is.

Google could now, quite easily, run my online life and, of course, their sign-in account is how I access my blog and share my calendar.

I haven't been to the library in Nailsea yet, apart from to join in 2006. Research? No need to leave your desk any more.

Do remember to get some exercise today.

Trusting the Internet

Read an interesting piece in Sunday's Observer by Christine Odone about how difficult it had been to change an entry on Wikipedia. Apparently her biographer insisted she was born in Italy, which she wasn't. Or perhaps the other way round.

Anyway this blog deals with opinion not fact so find out the truth somewhere else. But how well should you trust the internet? Even its creator Tim Berners-Lee is now worried that there is more untruth than truth out there. I have used the web for research for a number of years now and offer these tips:

1. Multiple sources. Unless you are convinced a source is utterly reliable, seek confirmation from elsewhere. Be suspicious of any other source which has simply repeated words copied from your original site (or vice versa).

2. Check by email. Most sites have 'contact us' sections. Do so.

3. Check by phone and get a name. More time consuming but important if you need to be sure.

4. Acknowledge your source in your writing and any doubts you have.

5. Build up a 'feel', goodwill if you like, of sites which seem to consistently deliver what you need and badwill of those which regularly mislead you.

6. Treat each site like a person you are learning to trust. Your Mum told you not to talk to strangers but you do it all the time online. Build up trust slowly. I have met two people in person who I first encountered through the virtual world but they were both from the same area of professional interest as me. See who is faithful in small matters before giving them responsibility for large ones.

7. Don't libel. Writing untruths about people which damage their reputation can lead you to be sued. 'If in doubt, chuck it out' was the very poor motto of the insurance claims department I once worked at but a good one for writing articles.

Add more if you want to.