An all-too-common dialogue concerning the modern day question of questions:

You on Facebook Lucy?

-No.

Really?? Why not, too ‘cool’ for it?

-No, I just don’t want one. It’s not that I am against social media, I just don’t want a Facebook account.

Why not?

-You really want to know why? Ok, fine: I will get every fucker I have ever encountered – either through shagging them, having a truly ‘meaningful’ heart to heart with whilst shit-wrecked at a house party 6 months ago or simply by proxy i.e. the girl I sat next to in English class 12 years ago – asking me to be their ‘friend’. I then have to decide whether I want to accept their friendliness - and be bombarded with pictures of them in fancy dress/cakes they’ve baked or ‘kids in bed, wine in hand!’ statuses - or ‘reject’ (how cruel) it where I will then be asked by them (and those who know both of us – mutual ‘friends’) why I don’t want to be their friend; to which I either wave the white flag and accept them or admit that if they set themselves on fire and offered to pay me lots of money to spit on them, I’d still have to ‘decline’.

Well why not set one up under a pseudonym and only tell your friends?

-There’s that word ‘friend’ again – on planet Facebook a friend is not a friend so if I got myself a Facebook how do I negotiate this ‘friend’ thing? On Facebook, what is a ‘friend’? Is it someone already in my life, someone I already communicate with physically? No, I’ll tell you what it is, it’s a commodity, something to accumulate, something to define who and what you are based on how much of it you have. Call me traditional but that aint friendship to me and I want nothing to do with it.

In terms of the pseudonym, this is something I have considered but then I think why do I want to join Facebook under a pseudonym so I can lurk around, unidentified, only speaking to those I actually like and, therefore, already communicate with in person (!), on the phone or via text or email? I have no actual friends outside a 30 mile radius of my house so if I want to reach out I can jump on the train/in my car and have a drink and lovely chat with them. So in answer to the pseudonym puzzler: I would be adopting a false name in order to protect myself from the evils of Facebook or I could save myself the turmoil and (drum roll please) NOT HAVE A FACEBOOK. Ta daaaa!

A Testament to Marketing!

I love how cupcakes have become as much a part of modern Western culture as breathing polluted air; clever clever cupcake peddlers!

I was innocently observing the twitter account of a Dominant/Submissive couple and came across their family photo album. Of course there were the expected snaps: pictures of 'Ms. Sub' choking down a massive dildo, arses covered in scars and bruises from some whiled away afternoon but wait...CUPCAKES? Trays of freshly baked mini-cakes with accompanying pride: ‘The red ones are mine, yay!’

The Cupcake: once a lowly children’s Birthday party treat has now transcended its stereotype and is spreading its cakey/buttercreamy joy to all! To Sarah-Jessica Parker and those that made her eat one in front of a camera: brrravo!

Uh oh!

I did find a piece I'd written where I describe myself as an office worker/housewife but we'll ignore that one...

Written September 2010 (same shit different year)

I just inserted one of those memory stick things into my laptop and found some work from Sept 2010, not bad actually I thought I only found my brain/creativity post-September 2010...here it is:

Hello, yes yes I am still here/somewhere.

My apologies for not feeding you with a delicious post for a couple of weeks but I have an excuse…I started University. I’ve decided to take this writing lark seriously. It will benefit you all in the long run when I am spewing posts of a higher calibre.

My latest points of interest in the world of blogging have been geared to the thrill of the chase in both food and sex/relationships. I’m pondering the question: you can have your cake, but do you actually want to eat it?

Example, when ordering dessert in a restaurant, a considerable amount of the pleasure comes from selecting the most appealing, mouth-watering offering and then eagerly awaiting its arrival only to be sick of it/disappointed a few mouthfuls in…you could argue that I may just need to go to better restaurants or you could consider the idea that the acquisition of said confection runs parallel to the thrill of chasing tail/skirt…whatever you wanna call it.

You see a guy/gal at a bar, you’ve scanned the place and s/he is the most appealing, mouth-watering offering. You then spend time establishing a connection be it across the room or, if like me you prefer the more direct approach, talking to them about the establishment you both find yourselves in, your likes, dislikes all the while hoping they will offer themselves to you.

You’re convinced this is your soul-mate…same favourite colour? Indeed! Second cousin grew up in the same town as your friend’s dad? You betcha! This person HAS to be yours…you’ve placed your order, you await the delivery – will they/wont they? Oh they will, ok bored now! Move on…you could argue that I need to go to better bars or you could consider the idea that sex and food have a deeper connection than whipped cream and chocolate sauce!

So how do you not tire of a plate of food/piece of ass after a few bites? How about a mezze? Several offerings of deliciousness all at once ensuring a range of flavours, textures and sensations are on offer. Monogamists look away now, this diet isn’t for everyone.

How I spent my afternoon.

I feel really sorry for the poor bastards who work for big corporations, you know the type: banks, utility providers etc. When us folk on the 'other side' call in pissed off because we have been billed £450 too much for a bit of electric or our internet connection promises it is indeed 'connected' yet the little circle on the web page just slowly rotates, they have to sit and listen to us whiny dickheads ruining their Tuesday.

The thing that fucks me right off is that the staff at these places are so tied up in procedure that they are rendered nothing more than people who say 'I can see where you're coming from but...' and then proceed to get a verbal shit-kicking from us folk who just want to pop onto google without it being a long drawn out affair. The ones that should really be receiving a big fat piece of their clients' minds are the big-wigs who create these fantastically 'efficient' departments' procedures - that curiously seem alien to any other department within the same organisation (?) - then proceed to sit in their offices wanking over the cornflower blue icons whilst the staff in their call centres are being ripped apart by someone who needs but a modicum of sense and reason to see that the billing procedure is fundamentally flawed in that it seems to base most of it's 'facts' on random dates and figures plucked from the air.

If I didn't view Fight Club (the movie) as little more than pro-capitalist irony I would say that Brad Pitt was onto something...

Hello, how are you? No seriously, how are you?

Today I am disturbed by the volume of perfunctory engagement we humans have with each other. Case in point, a colleague in the office I work in just addressed a fellow employee:

'Hi Jane, alright?'

'Oh hi Lou, I'm ok thank- oh he's gone' (embarrassed giggle)

Now this is viewed as quite a common, natural even, exchange in a busy-busy-oh-so-busy office but I think it's odious. Really I do.

People ask how you are without giving a shit and, even worse, people respond knowing that person doesn't give a shit yet put themselves through it in order to conform to damn social norms. I refuse to engage in conversation with anyone who is either looking at their FUCKING PHONE or has glazed over. I mean it, I will just say 'oh you're not listening, forget it' to which they reply 'no, no I am you were saying (then they are able to recall the last word you said which proves nothing other than that they have ears and short term memory)'. This sounds like I am desperate for attention, that I WANT TO BE LISTENED TO BECAUSE I HAVE GREAT THINGS TO SAY, in a way that's true, we all want to be heard if we feel we have something worth saying but fundamentally I just get really really annoyed when people choose to engage with me then proceed to mentally check out. Why have you asked me out for a drink? Is it to tick the part of this weeks list that says 'Do something sociable this week, don't just go to work then lie on the settee as this makes you look boring/you're wasting your oh so short life?'

I'm not saying we all have to live our lives staring deeply into the eyes of everyone we meet addressing them with the utmost sincerity as a means of creating a connection and therefore reminding each other that you do exist; it sounds great but who has the time? What I am saying, I think, is stop fucking asking each other how we are whilst tapping away on laptops or leaving the room before having the chance to response. It's humiliating and infuriating to think that a photocopier is worthy of more attention, especially if it's only printing a spreadsheet that keeps records of all the other spreadsheets you need to maintain for your boss who will never actually read them.

That is all.

I love this...

"Nothing I do is ironic. I am post-Ironic. Irony is the ultimate cop-out way of turning something you did not mean into something you did. Like bands that put big tits on their album sleeves and say it's an ironic comment about sexism. Like bands that put car shit on their album sleeves and say it's anti-car. Bollocks. If it glorifies then it's bollocks. Irony is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

Julian Cope