With that landmark reached, here’s one I like from the horribly aborted Last Hurrah 2010 tour.

I’m not quite sure how this happened, but suffice to say that the World Cup helped quite a bit. As has Katrin Müller-Hohenstein’s bottom, which – depressingly – remains my most viewed photo from the tournament. Depressingly because it’s rubbish (the photograph – her bottom is lovely). Here it is again with ex-German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn looking on.

But I digress. Often.

If you’ve ever looked at any of my photos, thanks. If you haven’t, now would be the perfect time to start as I begin my journey on the path towards 200,000 views.

I’ll be back tomorrow, assuming I make it through the night.

@6000 Write a blog post about it. For the sake of our DM inbox.

Most Twitter DM (direct message) spam from your followers or followees comes from someone doing something a bit foolish, like giving their login details to an unscrupulous third party, which then (unsurprisingly) acts unscrupulously, as is the nature of the beast.
Of course, most users would baulk at the suggestion that they would ever willingly share their password with any third party, but that’s actually what you do each and every time you authorise an app to use your login.
Many (most?) apps are completely harmless in this regard, but if you authorise a dodgy app which is phishing for your details, then you only have yourself to blame. And what does a “dodgy app” look like exactly? Well, if you need me to tell you that, you’re probably in trouble already, but thankfully Twitter steps in to spare our blushes:

Be wary of any application that promises to make you money or get you followers. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

Beware also of links promising free shopping vouchers, iPods, iPads and weight loss tips. And have a look at Twitter’s SpamWatch account.

So how do you know if your Twitter account has been compromised? There are a few rather obvious signs:

Have you:

• Noticed unexpected Tweets by your account.
• Seen unintended DM’s (direct messages) sent from your account.
• Observed other account behaviors you didn’t make or approve (like following, unfollowing, or blocking).
• Received a notification from us stating that, “You recently changed the email address associated with your Twitter account” (even though you haven’t changed your email address).

If so, then yes, your account has probably been compromised. Incidentally, if you are on the receiving end of such spam, don’t click on any links therein, but do let the sender know that you received it. Then they can prevent the problem from continuing.

Right, so your account has been compromised. How do you uncompromise it?

3 quick and easy steps:

1. Change your password, via the Password Tab in Account Settings.
2. Revoke access to any applications that you don’t use or don’t recognise, via the Applications Tab in Account Settings.
3. Update your password on trusted 3rd party applications.

It might also be a good idea to scan your computer for malware as well, especially if the problem persists despite taking the steps above.

The best thing to do is not to be silly in the first place. You wouldn’t wander round giving your PIN code to everyone, would you? Guard your login details in the same way, stand back and watch as none of the above applies to you. And limit those dodgy links as well – report spam you receive (using the “Report Spam” button) and let Twitter admin do the rest.

Incidentally, the same rules apply to Facebook as well. You can change your password via this page and revoke dodgy apps here.

Just occasionally, I check to see what serach terms have been used to find 6000 miles… over the last few weeks. They’re usually pretty obvious – this time there was a lot of stuff about load-shedding, that concert “next year”, the inevitable weeing on your bougainvillea and, as ever, some queries on who will be playing at Kirstenbosch this Sunday (it’s Zahara (TBC) with Claire Phillips, by the way).

And then, amongst all the one and two-word search terms, this:

lovely idea, to get out of this stupid, fairtrade, brown-stained, mandelson-skewed, equal-opportunities, multicultural, carbon-neutral, trendily left, regionally assembled, big-government, trilingual, mosque-drenched, all-the-pigs-are-equal, property-is-theft hellhole and set up shop somewhere

It sounds like some sort of Jeremy Clarkson diatribe that he’ll get into trouble for.

And then I remembered, that’s because it is and he did.

Last week I posted an Excellent Quiz Question which evidently got a lot of people thinking. This is a good thing.

Now, I’m going to post the answers, but on this separate post so that the question remains “live” for those who want to have a go at it. If you want to have a go – click the link above rather than scrolling down for the answers below. If you want the answers, then scroll down rather than clicking the link above. If you can’t understand this simple choice, give up and go home.

Please now enjoy a photograph of Coldplay to fill up some space.

And now your winner and those who came close:

With 4/4: @jeremysetzer

With 3/4: Graeme Broster & Daniel McEwan

There were numerous entrants with 2/4.

Thanks to all that had a go. Without further ado – the answers:

There are four countries in the world which end in a letter which no other country does. Can you name them?

1. Iraq
2. Denmark
3. Luxembourg
4. Bangladesh

Cue a multitude of lightbulb moments, I would imagine…

“Claremont Visible Policing”

“Claremont Invisible Policing”

Hahahahahahaha! (sorry)

Bizarrely, one of the posts which recurrently scores the highest number of hits is this one from June 2009, which features a baby pygmy marmoset. There’s nothing else of interest in that post, so I’ve formulated the hypothesis that “cute gets hits”.

That being the case, have some baby platypi platypuses:

Cute, hey? Yeah, cute until they get you with the pair of short spurs tucked away on their back legs, each of which is hooked-up to a venom gland that makes a viciously painful toxin:

Platypus spurrings of people are rare, but the select group who have survived the trauma (often fishermen trying to free irate monotremes from their nets) report pain strong enough to induce vomiting which can persist for days, weeks or even months. The pain is resistant to morphine and other pain-killing drugs and anaesthesia of the main nerve from the spur site is often the only way to relieve the patient’s suffering.

Or, of course, brandy:

“… the pain was intense and almost paralysing. But for the administration of small doses of brandy, he would have fainted on the spot: as it was, it was half and hour before he could stand without support: by that time the arm was swollen to the shoulder, and quite useless, and the pain in the hand very severe.” – W.W. Spicer (1876)

Mmmm….. Brandy….

But I feel we’re drifting away from the original idea of this post, so for more cute pictures and all you need to know about baby platypi platypuses head here.

I’ll try and get some postage done later this evening or tomorrow or maybe some other time.

Regular readers [in unison]: “My goodness – he didn’t even have time to do a quota photo!”

Indeed. So now you know it’s serious!

Could they possibly be talking about this?

Best not to chance depriving yourself – vote here and get all the benefits that come with it.
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