This. This. A million times this.

It’s like he’s reading from the (as yet unwritten) 6000 miles… manifesto.
Chas Newkey-Burden has nailed it here. Completely.

If you don’t like Facebook, why don’t you just leave?

Yes. Why don’t you? And here, I’m already beginning to repeat Chas’ thoughts, but if you don’t like that recent change they made to their UI, why not just delete your account? No-one is forcing you to be there. It’s not mandatory.

Just go.

The fact that a lot of complaining about Facebook takes place on Facebook has always had a dash of irony about it, particularly for those of us who still quite enjoy the platform and do not smash our fists against the screen if it slightly changes the hue of its background colour.

He’s talking about me there. I am always amused by people raging about Facebook… on Facebook. I tell them to demand a refund from Mark Zuckerberg. They seek revenge by sending me invites to Farmville.

People complain about Facebook as though it was a service they were forced to use, or were paying over the odds for. Nobody is making you use Facebook and humanity survived for thousands of years without it – so if you are that angry with it, why not just leave?

Ouch. That’s going to ring painfully true with some of my “Facebook friends”. You know who you are. Possibly, anyway.
All of which brings up another question, namely: Why am I still “friends” with these people? Well, the answer to that is that I’m not anymore. I’ve grown old, tired and cynical and I’ve memorised the quick route through to the ‘Unfriend’ button. It’s a pleasingly cathartic process.

Cheerio!

Personally, I still enjoy a lot about Facebook… the site is like my office water cooler, somewhere to congregate for a bit of energising banter a few times a day. And if my office managers changed the colour of the water cooler, or used the water cooler for a bit of market research about its consumers, I imagine I would soon get over it, just as I have yet to feel like crying my eyes out over any of the ways Facebook has evolved over the years.

What have any of us got to fear from leaving? Being out of the loop? Good grief – wouldn’t you pay to be out of the loop of a fair amount of what’s on your Facebook feed?
Because let’s be honest: some Facebook posts are as annoying as hell. And no Facebook posts are more annoying than those that complain about Facebook.

Like I said, Chas Newkey-Burden has nailed it here.

Completely.

Making A Difference

Here’s a happy story. A positive story. A nice story.
And I’m all for happy, positive, nice stories right now.

This story is from the Telegraph and is about a train dispatcher at St. Albans station in the UK. His name is James Allen, and despite the somewhat mundane job he has, he makes a difference in people’s lives by just being happy, positive… nice.

Very early on the morning of October 7, 2013, James Allen walked along Platform Three of St. Albans train station. For most of the commuters waiting, the day was not looking promising: it was Monday, it was cold, the sky was grey, and it was beginning to rain. Smiling graciously, he lifted his speaker and in a soft and quintessentially English voice, said:

“Hello, my name is James. It is lovely to see you all here this morning. I understand that Monday mornings are a difficult time for you all, but can I just say how happy I am to see you today. I truly mean that. I wouldn’t do this job if it wasn’t for all of you.”

Various nameless faces grinned at one another and after a few seconds some began to clap; soon most of the platform joined in.

See? Doesn’t take much, does it?

James-Allen-Main-p_2931264b

James’ backstory is fascinating: he was a butler, he was an alcoholic, he quotes from the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Do go and read the article linked to above.
But it’s his philosophy and attitude which is really so refreshing. For him to be able to be able to make a difference – however small – in so many people’s lives is a wonderful thing.

The world needs more James Allens.

PistoriusBalls 16

Ah yes. We return, following a month or more of psychological assessment for the defendant. And the first and most important order of business is, of course, that psychological report… Right after we’ve dealt with the Pistorious family’s scent choices, that is:

 
It’s like some sort of twisted reunion:


And we’ve missed your insane ramblings too, Charl. Almost as much as we’ve missed Barry “Oscar gives me followers” Bateman and his incisive and detailed commentary:


Not everyone in the class can concentrate that hard and that long though.
There’s always that one class clown, isn’t there, ruining things for everyone else?


It’s your own time you’re wasting, Phillip. *teacher sighs*
Why can’t you be more attentive, like David?


Was this ring binder the blue file? Why didn’t Bateman tell us about the highlighting? What colour was the pen? What model is the iPhone?

Find out all this and more, tomorrow, in the next thrilling installment of PistoriusBalls!

Waterloo Sunset

I don’t think this is actually anywhere near Waterloo, but poetic licence and all that.

I was going to (and almost certainly still will) send this photo to Brian Micklethwait of BrianMicklethwait Dot Com because it’s London, there are Big Things, a couple of Cranes and it is begging to be Thinned. That said, I’m quite sure that the Venn Diagram of our respective readerships is far from a perfect circle so (aside from the fact that he might not want to post it anyway), I think that I can get away with putting it here too, because I think it’s very pretty.

ldnsunset

Shared via a friend on Facebook, so I’ve actually no idea who to credit, but whoever it is has done a very good job there.
Well done. All credit to you. Or… er… not.

And despite being a regular reader of Brian’s, it seems that I have comprehensively failed to keep up with the incessant and rapid growth of the London skyline and so I’m not sure what’s what here. I can obviously see the Gherkin slightly left of centre and next to that, possibly the old NatWest Tower (now Tower 42 or something?). Incidentally, I think that tiny sliver of light on the left hand side of that building is actually incredibly important in making this photo really good.
Oh, and right over on the left, if you’ll excuse the oxymoron, is the Walkie Talkie of LONDON SKYSCRAPER IS SOLAR DEATH RAY! fame, yes?

Otherwise, I’m lost.