Facebook Files - World Events

I was a slow starter but once I got going on Facebook I took to it like a mouse maddened by temptingly smelly cheese balanced on a delicately set mouse trap. But rather than posting unappetising photos of my breakfast or passing on soppy aphorisms with underlying threats of death and disease if I didn’t pass them on I have tended to fire off pithy, or thought provoking, or allegedly amusing posts with the sole intent of eliciting responses. Some have resulted in a satisfying flurry of responses, and some have been complete blanks.

Current events of 2013 have of course been a rich source of comment and I also had fun in posting thought provoking photographs.

The Royal Baby July 2013

And we all love a royal birth don’t we? I was glued to this breaking news for two whole days:-

The Times of Swaziland bill board this morning; "Duchess Kate Gets a Boy". Well it was a delivery I suppose . . . . . .(23/7/2013)

Can I just say that I am really beginning to enjoy The Royal Baby Story. It’s as if the entire media world has just slipped into LaLa Land . . . . . (23/7/2013)

According to the BBC Online Duchess Kate's Mum said that her Grandson is "absolutely beautiful". Well she's hardly likely to say "he looks like a frog" now is she? (23/7/2013)

George Alexander Louis - GAL for short. I don't think they've really thought this through - the First Form boys at Eton are going to have field day! (24/7/2013)

Just occasionally you see a sign

that defies further description!

The copyright on this photo is MINE!

8/11/2013

Crime & Security

From East Africa - 

So the Kenyan National Police Commissioner has been sent a severed head in a box with an accompanying message saying "You are next". The police say they are interpreting it as a death threat. Gosh these guys are on the ball!

Our own traffic cops can certainly not be faulted for their dedication to duty.

Dear Commissioner Magagula. I write to you in your capacity as Police Boss, and would like to firstly congratulate you on the fine job your boys (and girls) in blue do in reeling in the criminals of our society. Indeed I was rightly nabbed the other day for the heinous offence (forgive the vocabulary  – but I’ve been spending far too much time with my lawyer ‘friends’ lately!) of having a cracked windscreen. Can I however suggest that the smart place to catch more of us miscreants would be to position your troops at traffic lights so that when the lights change to red the officers can leap out and carry out ad hoc windscreen inspections.  A winning formula providing of course that the officers do not get mown down by all the drivers who regard the green light as “go”, amber as “go before it gets to red” and red as “go faster before it gets to green again”. Is there I wonder a direct connection between the proliferation of cracked windscreens and national colour blindness? In which case well done in catching the problem at its source!

We are no slouches either when it comes to private investigators.

The Swazi Observer today reported a quote from our famed Private Investigator Hunter Shongwe - "I am not like Jesus who said when someone slaps you on the left chick you should also give him the right chick. I don’t forgive that easily" Is this taking being Streetwise a tad too far; or am I confusing this with Kentucky Fried Cheekin?

Bit of behavioural guidance . . .17/12/2012

World Affairs

No – I have not burst into posts about Hollywood Starlet’s and Basket Ball players, but I have commented on even dafter people –

Oh Dear, oh dear oh dear. So Justin Bieber has been rebuked by the UK Office for Budget Responsibility for being a tad economical with the truth about recent economic facts - and David Cameron has been caught out for being a fresh faced turd with more influence than should be allowed to any public personality. No hang on a mo, have I got this quite right?

In August a daft organisational story broke.

So the UK Ministry of Defence has admitted administrative & computer errors leading to the expenditure of 40,000 pounds sterling on phone calls to an automated "speaking clock". There are so many angles to this bizarre story that even my overactive imagination has become overloaded! My initial reaction is thank God I'm not living there - with this level of competence I don't think I would feel particularly safe from a defence point of view. My second thought is that with this level of competence I don't think I would feel particularly safe from an attack point of view! People of the UK - should you not be really very, very worried?

November saw a mouth watering incident in America which should be a rich source of further scatological investigation.

LA Airport is in the throes of "multi patient incident". This, in this instance, is a euphemism for "someone with a firearm has shot a number of people". And I've just realised the true meaning of a "Euphemism". It means something has just occurred that we are actually (yet again) deeply disturbed about but to disguise our embarrassment we are somehow downgrading the severity of the event by shrouding it in mundane and intentionally misleading descriptions. Or perhaps I am being oversensitive.

A new verb swung across my field of vision, one with which I think English Teachers could have an absolute field day. “Potts Minor.” “Yessir?” “Conjugate the following verb.”

I've just discovered a new word - Twerking - thanks to a chick called Miley Cyrus -and apparently it’s gone viral. 'Twerking is a dance move that involves a person shaking the hips in an up-and-down bouncing motion, causing the dancer to shake, "wobble" and "jiggle."' So I'm told by Wikipedia. My cat Yorick - who is also a celebrity - has being doing this manoeuvre with the dogs for months. So what's the news?

A Competition
In November and apropos of absolutely nothing I set a little competition, a geo-photographic quiz, which went like this -

One of these photos is of a slab of rock, and the other is of a slab of landscape; or to put it another way the distance from camera to subject is 1.34km for one and about 1.34m for the other. Guesses? 6/11/2013

Photo B

Photo A

Facebook

Facebook administration is itself also a source of amusement and sometimes intense frustration – if you let it get to you.

I'm getting "suggested posts" on my main facebook page (by "main" I mean the bit in the middle!). These are adverts by any other name - and I don't want them! Is anyone else afflicted in the same way; and is there a way of stopping this? I signed up to be in contact with friends that I have chosen. I have not chosen to be friends with (for instance) “#^>%< Paints” - of whom I know nothing, and what’s more don't want to know about.

This became a bit of mantra.

They're back again - like a rash - “#^>%< Paints”. I keep un-friending them, but they keep bouncing back again. "Who will rid me of this troublesome Paint?" (13/4/2013)

“#^>%< Paints”! They're back again! They're like dandruff on a shirt collar. Just can't get rid of it. Surely there is the social media equivalent of "Head and Shoulders"? (18/7/2013)

No one seemed to be able to help so I went straight to the top and faithfully reported the results

Dear Facebook,

I recently sent the following complaint to you -

"I am getting adverts posted on my news feed. Please remove them – I do not want them. They are intrusive. Of all the changes made to fb over the past two or so years this is the one that would most persuade me to cancel my facebook subscription and find another social network platform. I wonder if you will pick this comment up and respond directly - I somehow doubt it!"

You replied directly to my email address as follows -

"Hi, Thanks for your feedback. We're constantly trying to improve Facebook, and your input is important to us. Unfortunately, we can't respond to individual feedback emails, but we are reading them. "

I do not believe that you ARE reading mine, or anyone else's feedback; but I know you CAN do because Mr Edward Snowden has said so. Now is your chance to prove to me and my fb friends that you really DO read my and other people's feedback.

I look forward to your reply, Cheers! (23/7/2013)

I’m still waiting!

"Good to be heading home" thought the 

Great Turtle of the South as it floated through 

the cool untroubled waters of a Western 

sun-set sky. 21/7/2013