I’m back, back, back!
Me drinking tea, thinking about stuff
Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome back. I’ve missed you. Some of you. At least two of you have missed me.
410 – The Last Post
Welcome to my last ever blog post. Well, it had to happen sometime and it’s today, the official end to Christmas. So I won’t make it to three years of blogging, but I don’t care. Looking back to January 28th, 2010, life was very different and I was a very different person. I was much angrier than I am now and was much more willing to express those feelings to the world.
Now, with the experiences I’ve gained in the last three years, both online and in real life, I’ve decided to call it a day. To be honest, the not being angry thing isn’t really the catalyst. This blog became something more than an angry rant some time ago and became somewhere for me to chat on about whatever I wanted. I always felt that it was my blog and I could write what I wanted and if you didn’t want to read it, that was fine by me.
So what’s changed? Well, my attitude to social networking and online presence in general has changed beyond measure. Yes, I’m still on Twitter, but boy am I careful about what I write. Yes, I still have a website, but again, it’s far different from how it used to be. Let’s make this clear, Twitter has cost me tens of thousands of pounds a year. I lost a great job because of a silly mistake I made on Twitter and that more than anything made me completely rethink not just my attitude towards social networking, but the situation we all find ourselves in.
We’re so happy to post anything we like anywhere we like without the slightest thought about what might happen to that information, or how accessible it might be in ten years or fifty years. What about that hideous Facebook post you made several years ago, when you were single and drunk, which has been copied and stored by some random site, and now, ten years later you want to be a primary school teacher and the first thing Google picks up is that when your name is typed in? Then what? There’s nothing you can do about it! What if you had an uncompromising photo on MySpace and now it’s the top hit on Google images and you could do without that now given how you’re trying to market yourself and build a future for yourself and your family?
The truth is, we don’t know the implications because we’re the first generation to get involved in stuff like this. We don’t know what will happen to all this stuff, all this video, these pictures, these tweets, these links, these comments, any of it. We can’t imagine what the internet will be in five years, never mind twenty five and to be honest, I don’t really want all of this stuff to be here. You know, when I deleted all the implicated tweets shortly before I lost my job, if you were canny enough to search Google for the right search terms, one of the worst messages was easily found. I know because I found it. Fortunately, I knew the people trying to sack me wouldn’t be savvy enough to find it. Unfortunately, that didn’t matter.
Those were deleted messages which were not deleted. It’s when you delve like that that you start to worry. I can hardly believe I’ve got any online presence given that information, but I’m still here. There’s four hundred and ten posts on here, many of which are full of anger and vitriol and perhaps I ought to delete them all, delete my website and delete my Twitter account. Perhaps I will, I deleted my Facebook account after all.
For now, this is the end of my blogging days. Perhaps in time, I’ll begin to realise that if you’re careful with what you write, it’s all perfectly fine, but of course being open was the best thing about this blog. Me at my most candid was when the comments were liveliest and when the stats showed people were most interested in reading. Nobody wants to read my writing about banal things which I can be comfortable knowing nobody will ever react badly to. And boy have there been some bad reactions, but also some great ones, and of course plenty of crap with no reaction at all.
Still, there’s something approaching 70,000 hits on this site, so we’ll assume it’s done it’s job. Thanks to everyone who’s ever stopped by to read what I’ve written, thanks to those who’ve commented, both friends and mentals alike. You were always all welcome of course. It’s been exciting, tortuous and most of all, an amazing learning process. When I’ve got my head out of my arse maybe I’ll start again. I shall leave it all here for a while, just in case anyone wants to keep reading, but for now my suggestion would be to shut your computer, not post anything anywhere, unless it’s a personal letter into a letterbox, and go and enjoy some time with actual people, which doesn’t involve staring at a computer screen reading the pointless disembodied words of someone you don’t know.
It’s been a blast. Thanks for reading.
Pete Faint, January 2013.
409 – New Beginnings
There’s a rainbow. This is sign, right? (No, it’s not, it’s just a rainbow)
Well, there we go. I’ve thought a lot today about how I’d start this post and I’ve blown it by writing “well, there we go”. Doesn’t seem to matter. The picture above was not taken today. It was taken from the window which is in what used to be my office. I mean, the office is still there, but I’m not. I’ve been sacked.
Had I been writing this blog a few years ago, I would now go on a vicious tirade against the people who sacked me, but I’m not that person anymore. The general feeling is that I was a little hard done by. I made a mistake and paid the ultimate price. Nobody complained about the mistake I made but nevertheless I still had to pay the ultimate price. That’s all I need to say.
What I do want to say is that I’m very sad to not be there anymore. I worked hard and was rewarded for that work by positive results. I built friendships and relationships with staff and students (no, not like that, filthy reader) which I don’t now have the chance to build upon. I’m going to miss not seeing these young people flourish and move on to something exciting. That’s because it’s me who’s moving on to something exciting. Read more
408 – A little update
There’s a rainbow. This is sign, right? (No, it’s not, it’s just a rainbow)
Well, far be it from me to not be a man of my word. Today I had a moment of clarity. Well, it was yesterday really, but that doesn’t work so well in the telling of the story. Today I deactivated my Facebook account.
I’ve spent a long time slagging off the advert filled, baby picture covered, ‘like’ dying man filled, shallow, pathetic, tedious, fake, photo-heavy, disingenuous, dull-a-thon that is Facebook so it was time to let go. I say let go, I really mean dump from a great height. Facebook has changed so much since I joined, when my name was followed by ‘is’ and we typed a sentence telling our friends what we were up to or how we felt. Oh yeah, remember that? Fun wasn’t it. It was just a bit of fun. A way to remind ourselves of people we’d forgotten and chat away to them about dumb stuff.
Except it’s really not that any more. In fact, this morning’s deactivation has been so cathartic that I can’t really be bothered to slag it off properly. It’s an utter waste of time, but not in the good way it once was and I can’t bear to have the images on my computer screen that I’ve been force fed by people over the last year or so. Didn’t have them back in the day did we? Just the odd stupid picture of someone you liked doing something silly. Now it’s either a strangers-death-a-thon, a bazillion pictures of a baby, or a massive look-at-me-I’m-amazing-wank-a-thon. Yes, I know I’ve done it (not the dying people or babies, I hasten to add) but the point is I’ve seen sense and got rid.
I made the point yesterday and got an interesting reply that it’s still a useful tool blah blah blah, but that’s fine for them, though not for me.
Essentially, that’s all I want to say about that. Just thought I’d mention it. Oh, and I’m all over Twitter, so I’m sure you can find out anything you need to know about me there. And having written that, I’ve just realised this is the first post which won’t be published to my Facebook account, so I’ll probably lose loads of hits. Oh well.
Troll
So, anyway. With reference to the last couple of posts, I thought I’d mention that my trolling idiot of a ‘fan’ has stopped writing because I stopped replying, then blocked him from the comments section. He won’t be commenting again. He might try, but he won’t be published. He will read this though, because he loves me. He will get angry. Or she. I did think about really following through with the bile and was supported by a friend, who wrote some great replies but we both couldn’t be arsed in the end. If someone isn’t prepared to listen to reasoned argument then they’ll just disappear up their own ridiculous angry jealous arse. (Oh, that’ll make him angry!)
Stalker
It appears I’ve got myself my first stalker. A new student boldly came up to me yesterday and told me she was a ‘fan’. Yes, a ‘fan’ of my blog, then made reference to a long forgotten post that I’d dismissed many months ago and how she’d often made reference to it at school.
She’ll no doubt be reading this, so I better be careful what I say, especially as her educational welfare is my concern for the next three years. Can’t decide whether I’m flattered or scared. I’ll keep you posted.
Fat
I’m still fat. Not as fat as I was the last time I wrote about it, but I shan’t write about it again until I’m not fat any more. *multiple cries of ‘thank god for that’*
Chris Moyles
I’m quite happy to admit, as I always have been, that I listened to Chris Moyles on Radio One. Lots of people I know don’t like him, which is fine. Of course if you read this blog regularly you’ll know that the solution to not liking some kind of media is to switch off. What I hate is people slagging him off as though he’s some kind of evil dictator. The people (who I know and respect) who are slagging him off can’t surely listen to Radio One – the playlist would make them die I suspect, so I don’t really know why there’s a problem. Perhaps these people wish that the eight million people who listened to Moyles would listen to their albums instead. This, sadly, is unlikely.
I suspect I’ll write a little more about Chris Moyles, or rather the Chris Moyles haters, but for now, I’ll leave it there. I thought I ought to write something, even if it’s just for my crazy troll and my new stalker.
Maybe they’re the same person…
407 – A little story about an idiot
I suspect this matter isn’t finished, but I thought I’d share this for those of you who aren’t dull enough to return to my posts and read the comments. An un-named reader wrote this today, about yesterday’s blog post:
Honest?……
You are truly fucked up man, you harbour all of these negative feelings but I bet inside you’re a ‘yes man’ that doesn’t say fuck all to anyone. Just sits there silently watching and judging. You need to seriously think about what you say or write in a public areana dude. You just burble and bumble along from one offensive topic to another, slagging off peoples weddings that you get paid well for, blurting out shit (politics and unions). Nobody in their right mind says the shit that you say. I would be seriously SERIOUSLY worried for my mental state if I were you. By your own admission you say you teach, you are a band member, you have your own business and you keep writing shit like this? Are you trying to cut your own throat? I don’t think you like yourself or what you do or the people you have to lick arse to. Talk about handing a machine gun to a monkey.
And if you’re wondering why I keep returning it’s because I like watching a car crash in motion
Bit harsh isn’t it? Not really, not when you read my reply: Read more
406 – Fat
Heavy things. I’m this much less fat now.
Oh dear readers where have I been? Well, nowhere much to be honest, just not on here.
I’ve spent so much of the last couple of months in deep thought about one thing and another, you’d think I’d have plenty of material to write about and I probably have, but sometimes ones thoughts are kept to oneself, you know? I’m not being morbid, I’m just being honest. As honest as ever.
Funnily enough, I spent lots of time thinking that telling people that you’re always honest is stupid and fatuous, unless you’re also very open. I’m always honest with my thoughts and opinions on here, but so often I keep them to myself that it’s hardly worth the bother and hardly worthy of merit.
So anyway, during this not particularly deliberate hiatus, I’ve spent most of my time obsessing about my weight and my attitudes to my weight, so that’s what I’m going to briefly talk about. I’m also going to generalise about fat people. If you don’t like my generalisations, or you don’t agree, don’t worry about it. It’s just my opinions and it doesn’t matter what I think. Throughout the generalisations I’m mostly just referring to myself, anyway.
So, I’m fattist. I’ve always been a bit fattist and this prejudice has always been laced with irony as I’ve spent most of my adult life being fat. I’m also blessed, if blessed is the right word, with having the facility to cover it well, dress accordingly and ‘carry weight’ better than a lot of people. Of course it’s not a blessing at all. I’ve also been burdened with the ability to put on weight very easily. Ah, now then, here’s the first of many things we have to get over (and the first generalisation). Nobody is burdened with the ability to put weight on easily. I’m not. I’m burdened by greed and burdened by the facility to eat shit loads of cake and pizza and drink loads of beer everyday. This is a burden of some kind, but it’s utterly self inflicted. I’m also burdened with an obsession with my weight and the propensity to think about it a lot. As it turns out, this will be my saviour. Read more
405 – Airport Security Lunacy
The picture you see here is of two plastic bags. The rather dishevelled one on the left is a bag I use when I’m going on a plane to put my toiletries in. I decided to use the same one and leave a few bits in it to save me a modicum of hassle when getting ready for a trip away. I’ve not used it loads. Perhaps yesterday was the fifth time I’ve used it.
The bag on the right… Well, let me explain.
