Tag: Blogging

A few days ago a short video clip went viral, in the way short video clips do. It was taken during a baseball game and showed a foul ball (a hit that lands out of bounds) landing in the front few rows of the stand. A child scrabbles under his seat to get it but the ball rolls under his seat and a man sitting behind him reaches down and snatches it up, laughing, and then hands it to the woman sitting next to him.

Watching it and you can’t help but be horrified, a grown man, snatching a ball away from a child and LAUGHING about it.

Needless to say the backlash was swift and I re-tweeted it myself in a pique of righteous outrage. Who WAS this douchebag? Clearly a horrible person, and it wasn’t hard to plop him into the American stereotype; white guy, baseball cap, arrogant, careless, Trump voter, and no doubt an ill-educated, racist, sexist, right-wing asshole to boot. It’s not much of a leap, let’s be honest, given the lens we view America through at the moment but with a quick click of a button I could share my disbelief and mild hatred of this stranger with the rest of Twitter, along with several thousand other similarly gobsmacked people who also re-tweeted the clip.

Ohhh and it felt so so good. Justice has been served!! At least in so much as it ever is in a world where social media skips and bounces across the surface of the inane and newsworthy alike, why deep dive when you can pass judgement and move on to the next crusade. Dreddful times? But then I guess it’s not like we have to wait long before the next thing comes along, the next blip on the radar at which we can direct our moral judgement, all name of correcting wrongs and making the world a better place.

Baseball stealer, Brexit disaster, climate change, refugee activism. Click, click, click, click. And lo I have participated and the world spins easier on its axis.

That’s how the world works now, right? I have shared so I am part of the solution, I can now kick back, relax and feel good about myself. Isn’t social media WONDERFUL!

I know, I know, if only it were so.

One of the first things I ever published here, back in June 1999, was a reaction to another shooting in the US of A. It was the only social media platform we had back then; four years before MySpace, five before Facebook, seven before Twitter. It were nowt but fields but it was all we had, hand-crafted HTML and FTP uploads. Even back then, despite the paucity of blogs (or perhaps because of it) my blogroll was full of similarly minded people, liberal IT geeks. No doubt there were plenty of right-wing GOP bloggers but I had no need or desire to track them down. The news was my source of information on the wider world.

These days the news is a source, and even then I’m much more wary of trusting it to be reported without agenda or bias, and I look to social media to sense check what I’m reading. Which means it can be a vicious circle of lies and deceit that self-perpetuate. Clearly social media is simply heralding the downfall of what little humanity we seem to have left.

Which is complete nonsense, after all I wouldn’t have heard about many glorious things at all if it wasn’t for social media. It’s not like the news headlines are dominated by acts of kindness and love, is it?

I know my life is richer for social media in many positive and uplifting ways. Which is lovely. Seeing the good side of humanity is a wonderful thing and genuinely makes me happy and reminds me that the shit-storm that is plastered all over newspapers and TV banners is the worst tip of the shitberg. Dig a little (ewwww) and there are stories of care and compassion to find. Phew. What a relief. Except it should be no surprise that my personally curated and selected social media feeds bring me things of joy and beauty in this horrible horrible world.

At this point I find myself searching for an analogy, one that pairs manure with roses, perhaps, but I then I realise that like most analogies it’s easy to realise how flawed they are; sure roses like manure, but too much manure and the roses will be weak and lack vibrancy, not enough and they are stunted and dull.

Which is all just a really clunky and roundabout way of saying I don’t think I have enough manure in my social media, which is not a statement I thought I’d ever make but there you have it. Like most people my social media is within my bubble, it shares my world view, it reacts the same way I do, and it’s why it’s a key part of staying connected to my “tribe”. I know that not looking outside of your tribe is, in and of itself, a dangerously blinkered view of the world to have.

I think I need to be challenged more, to have my gaze shifted from time to time, or I’m in danger of falling into the same knee-jerk reactions that I see elsewhere, the ones I point at and laugh at because what kind of idiot reacts without thinking?

In the world of fake news this is all the more important. Challenge your presumptions, pause your reactions, find the other sides to the story, assess.

That baseball guy, it turns out, had already snagged one foul ball and handed it to the kid in front of him. Apparently he’s a nice guy and does that from time to time. Various tweets from people sitting near him during the game confirm this, calling out all those horrible people who’d hate-shared the video clip portraying him as some form of child-hating monster.

I was one of those people.

I’d been faked news’d.

And worse still, I’d reacted just like the morons I see do it over and over again – Trump is great, women need to know their place, immigrants should just go home – I see those idiots scream and shout.

And I sit by and retweet those who rail against them, comfortable in my quiet home, safe from any backlash.

Years ago I used to write up posts that recapped my “fascinating” weekend (that’s some ironic quote marks, just to be clear. I used the same title for these – Weekender – and all of them were written in a vague, pseudo diary style which I think fitted the purpose for which I wrote them; I have a crap memory so even now looking back at the last time I published a post titled Weekender I can recall exactly which weekend that was (4 years ago, time flies like a banana and all that) and exactly what happened.

When I sat down to write up my London weekend it felt very much like that, a post for me to remember what had happened and, after another busy, fun filled weekend, I find myself sitting down to write another.

Friday night found me wandering to the Hydro to see Roger Waters do his thing. A friend who works in the industry said he’d heard it was an amazing visual show and the first half proved that completely and utterly wrong. We were sitting up in the bleachers, off to one side and all I could see was the band and a massive screen behind them (admittedly a very high def screen) but… big whoop.

But the second half completely blew my mind. It kicked off with a large long truss that extend out the length of the audience (from stage to the back of the ‘standing’ section for those familiar with the Hydro), dropping down and down and down until it was all of 3 or 4 metres above the heads of the people below. It then unveiled itself to be a series of screens… and sitting side on we had a perfect view. That was pretty WOW but towards the end of the show (and it is a show) the REAL WOW happened.

The Hydro is a large space so the resulting laser prism must’ve been 60 metres on each edge. It then filled with rainbows before the final light beams emerged. A real life rendering of the cover of Dark Side of the Moon, it was stunning in both scale and beauty. Ohhh and the music was pretty fuckin good too!

There was a lot of political and anti-globalisation messaging in his show as well. He is not shy of voicing his opinion and has the same liberal leanings as many, and there was something gloriously uplifting about seeing the words TRUMP IS A PIG across that giant screen, countered by horrific images of war and genocide that had me in tears. I hadn’t expected such a range of emotions and it took me most of my walk home to unpack them.

Saturday, after the usual gym session and a quiet chilled out afternoon, and I was heading to a friends house to drive out to Whitecraigs Rugby Club. Why? To do a firewalk of course!

Firstly, to everyone who sponsored me, thank you. You helped raise over £9,000 which, after Gift Aid, will end up more than £10,000. That money will go to some uplifting experiences for some children who could well do with some cheer in their lives. My friend, who also did the firewalk, is one of the organisers and trust me, she will make sure every penny is well spent on giving the kids a great time.

Anyway, the firewalk was a great experience although I should, at this point, confirm that I have some blisters; about 4 in total, all small and not sore at all after the initial ‘stingy’ feeling faded. Ohhh and I have a small bruise on my neck but that was from something else entirely.

Before the firewalk we were prepped with motivational thinking, mind over matter ideas, and of course we snapped an arrow with our neck. Wait, what? Ohhh yeah, not mentioned at all in the build-up, the firewalk instructor (her actual job title!) casually dropped that into her chat. An actual metal tipped arrow using nothing but your neck. Riiigghhhtttt.

You’ll be pleased to hear, dear reader, that I did not end up with an arrow puncturing my throat as said arrow did snap (I still have the pieces!) and after that the firewalk was a doddle! Top tip, walk with both hands held flat and facing upwards out to your sides, like you are balancing two small trays of drinks and you’ll walk ‘lighter’ (try it, it’s true!).

I was a little nervous as we waited in line but before I knew it, my friends had done it and I was up next. A few steps on very hot embers and it was over. The aftermath was a couple of ‘hot’ spots and it really did feel just like walking on very hot paving stones, not comfortable but not unbearable. Go us!!

Sunday was a lazy day, not just because of the highly emotional couple of days previously, but because it marked the end of a two month walking challenge. I managed over one million steps and, frankly, was glad to NOT be counting my steps at all! Instead I headed down to my see my sister, my Mum and Dad, and the cheekiest little niece an Uncle could wish for. She may be in her terrible twos but one smile, or mention of ‘Unkie Gee’ and I’m putty in her hands (and I think she’s starting to realise it!).

It was a wonderful end to a wonderful weekend… and next weekend is shaping up to be just as good!

The new year looms ahead of us and whilst I know that logically it’s purely an arbitary numbering scheme that governs this thinking, one can’t help but think of the coming weeks and months as something fresh and full of possibilities. I guess the secret will be to keep that thinking through the rest of this year.

Sticking with my say yes more than no approach to the year, it’s probably worth remembering that I already have a few things booked in this year, and whilst I know more will appear, it’s good to have things to look forward to.

First up is the first visit of the year to my favourite dining experience, Six by Nico. This time round it’s the ‘Best of 2017’ and they are currently running polls to vote on which dishes will make the cut. Prior to the new gym regime/classes/torture sessions starting I’ve got a hot stone massage booked in on the 13th, and at the end of the month the first gig of the year; The Muldoons at King Tuts.

February means a new GoGo Penguin album, and then a The Go Team! gig at Oran Mor. I’m also attending a talk by Colonel Chris Hadfield, and have a couple more gigs, namely British Sea Power and Post Modern Jukebox. A pretty good set of gigs for a February.

March kicks off with the double whammy gig of John Grant and Elbow, ohhh and a few days in Barcelona (must book that!). April brings the Festival of Light, a DJ/LED spectacular (apparently), May will bring OMGSOEXCITEDALREADY LCD Soundsystem back to Glasgow, and June kicks off with Derren Brown before a wee jolly to London to see a small band called Foo Fighters play at a place called Wembley (which will be my first time at the ‘new’ Wembley, my only previous visit to the ‘old’ Wembley being to see another small band called The Rolling Stones).

So, a few weekends already planned, and by the time I add in birthdays, a few theatre visits that I’ve yet to book tickets for, a desire to get outside more often than not (I found my waterproof trousers so that should help!), and the usual random nights out and, well it’s already looking like the first half of 2018 is gonna be a good one.

Which all leads me to the real purpose of this post. Having looked ahead (and there is a lot else going on that isn’t listed here) I think I’m going to be relaxing my posting habits here a little.

Throughout 2017 I posted every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. It was supposed to keep me in the writing habit but became a bit of a chore towards the end of the year (spot when I started writing up gig reviews and whatnot, just so I had something to write about). I’ll still do the Weekend Reading posts, but other than that I think I’ll be going for a less is more approach, or just posting whenever the mood takes me; which may well mean I post more often. The point is that I’m not committing myself to a schedule, as it’s already looking like 2018 will have plenty more to offer me and I want to be able to properly embrace those moments when they arrive.

And hey, if you are really that bothered you can find more of me on Twitter and Instagram.

OK, OK, what’s next?