Another blog-free period has come to pass. Largely due to me being struck down by a bout of humility that has left me doubting the point of typing words in a public place.
That’ll pass.
Quite quickly I imagine.
In the meantime I’ll recycle this old joke …
Knock! Knock!
Who’s there?
Interrupting Sheep
Interrupting She… ?
Baaaaaaaaa!!!
Every time there's a spate of burglaries and muggings on my street a new crop of crime prevention posters mysteriously appears one morning, like mushrooms. This is the latest.
‘You are entering a SmartWater Detection Area. Police in Lambeth are encouraging people to mark their belongings with this product’
I'm not sure what SmartWater is. I suppose it's a commercial product. Presumably the Metropolitan Police are on a commission. Now that would be an interesting revenue model - Don't do job properly = More commission from endorsing products bought by people worried about crime.
Nice ...
In recent years London has become a city filled with garish nonsense signs. Signs designed to ward off compensation claims. Signs telling you you can’t sit down, drive, park, take pictures, walk, talk or breathe. Signs for all occasions. None of them very nice or in any way helpful to Joe Public.
My personal favourite sign genre is the classic bright yellow ‘Murder Board’, set out by the police asking for witnesses or any information about nastier crimes. Thoughtfully set up at the crime sites, they act as a handy marker and reminder of just how dangerous particular neighbourhoods are.
There are always a couple of good ones within convenient walking distance from my front door. I started collecting them for a while until it got too depressing.
Now, apparently, the police are thinking about doing away with their Murder Boards. Not because crime is under control or anything silly like that but because of concern that they generate public anxiety while adding little or no benefit to police investigations …
“We are considering whether there are better ways of seeking information, which are more reassuring for the public. The boards go up where it is thought they are needed but they sometimes don't come down quickly enough... If we do still use them, should we not have follow up boards saying 'we solved this'?"
This observation probably comes from the same people who have decided that local residents can’t ask police for information about crimes committed in their area. On a couple of occasions I’ve asked the local police to tell me how many burglaries and assaults have taken place along my street over the previous twelve months. I was basically told to bugger off on the basis that such information would be misleading and counter-productive. Misleading and counterproductive for who?
Mugging rates in South London are up 40% on last year. Forty nine people were shot in London last month, three of them died. That’s up from twelve shootings in April 2004. The head of the Metropolitan Police was on the radio yesterday saying that much of the increase in street robbery was due to people wearing white headphones, identifying themselves as people carrying items worth stealing. Beyond any reasonable level of doubt, the head of the Metropolitan Police is a dick.
Yes, the Metropolitan Police Force and its new 3 Point strategy for fighting crime ...
1. Own nothing worth stealing
2. Don't walk the streets at night
3. Convince yourself there isn't a problem
I’d say we have a problem. And some arse thinks that if they take the signs away we’re not going to notice. Or maybe they just don’t have enough signs to keep up.
PS On a brighter note. The very fragrant Londonist site covers this story and links to an interesting Flickr group. A few weeks ago I mentioned in a blog posting that organised tourist walks of Jack the Ripper murder sites were a bit of a rip(per)-off as none of the original buildings remain. Someone else was clearly thinking along the same lines and posted this informative sequence of photos here. Tacky yes, but nicely composed.
I’ve just read a fantastic story from the BBC reporting that recent research conclusively demonstrates a link between failure to understand sarcasm and learning difficulties. This explains so much and is music to my ears, plus there’s the added bonus of one of the finest illustrative graphics to have graced my VDU for a long time - ‘How the Brain Comprehends Sarcasm’. A modern classic.
Samuel Johnson once said
"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
William Wordsworth once wrote after crossing the Thames 'Upon Westminster Bridge' …
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty;
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
These two guys were big London fans. Johnson, in particular couldn’t understand why any civilised man would choose to live anywhere else. Wordsworth too enthused about the City’s virtues. Yes, William Wordsworth, author or my all-time favourite line of bad poetry …
This thorn you on your left espy;
And to the left, three yards beyond,
You see a little muddy pond
Of water, never dry;
I've measured it from side to side:
'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide.
Being rich probably had a lot to do with their positive attitude to London. The process of well-off people romanticising my home town, in complete disregard to how the majority live their lives, has a long and noble pedigree.
I was daydreaming about the Wordsworth poem on the bus a while back. I couldn’t help wondering if he would have been so inspired if he were in my shoes in 2005, rather than a chauffeur driven carriage in 1802
Upon the 436 to Lewisham, via the shanty towns of Camberwell, New Cross and Peckham by William Wordsworth …
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty
… no, probably not.
A few days after later I got to thinking about Samuel Johnson whilst Tracy was telling me a story about something that happened to her on the way to work.
I was thinking about this particular Johnson quote ...
A country gentleman should bring his lady to visit London as soon as he can, that they may have agreeable topicks for conversation when they are by themselves.
Tracy's agreeable topick of conversation was that she walking to work when she passed a tramp sitting at a bench near a bus stop. He was bleeding profusely from the face.
Tracy: Are you alright?
Tramp: Someone has just kicked me in the head
Tracy: Shouldn’t you go to hospital?
Tramp: The police are chasing after the man who kicked me. They’ve just left me here
Tracy: Can I help at all?
Tramp: Do you have any spare change?
Tracy: #*$%£!!!
Serves her right for being so soft. She's lived here long enough to know better.
Mmmm ...
Another reason why I was up at 5.30am writing my last entry, and the reason why I haven’t written again for a few days since, is that we were waiting to hear some news about a close friend of Tracy’s who was sick in hospital.
We heard the news a few hours later. She had died.
She was 36.
All sorts of thoughts race through your head when someone close to you dies, particularly when that person is young.
Tracy took the news badly at first but that subsided after a couple of days. To be honest, I’m not quite sure she’s accepted what has happened. Tracy was chatting with her friend at her bedside on Sunday. A couple of days later she was gone. But Tracy hasn’t yet had to confront the reality of that passing.
If the process of assimilating bad news really can be broken down into a five stage, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance process, Tracy’s still stuck on first base. For many reasons, I’m not looking forward to the cremation service later this week.
Grief is a deceptive emotion. On the face of it you are feeling and expressing sorrow on behalf of the person who has died. But, on reflection, that just doesn’t stack up. That person is gone. Either way, whether you believe or disbelieve in survival of consciousness after Death, it simply doesn’t make sense feeling bad on their behalf. They really do not care any more.
Grief, and I don’t mean this in a judgmental way, is a selfish process. It’s about that which is lost to the living, not to the dead. Most of the time, if young enough or strong enough, we eventually learn to live with our new reality without the person we have lost and invest in that new reality. Some people, usually the old, never adjust and live the rest of their lives faced with a permanent vacuum. Having said that, there are some holes that can never be filled, however young and adaptable you might be. How do you fill the gap left by a parent or the love of your life? How do you deal with the second half of your life, when there are more people leaving than joining you?
Growing old can really be a pisser but, as I like to say, it’s usually better than the alternative.
Death, particularly untimely death, stirs up other emotions as well as a sense of loss. If you’re older than the person who died there’s a sense of guilt as well. Why is it you have enjoyed five, ten or however many more years of life? Are you using that time well? Was there something you could have done to help that person in some way? Were you a good enough friend, partner or son when they were still alive?
And then, of course, there’s you own sense of mortality. Over a meal with a couple of friends last week we drifted onto the subject of passing forty, as I have just done. We all agreed that little within ourselves had changed as a result of reaching that milestone save one very significant thing. We no longer felt immortal. When you turn 40 you hope that this is just the halfway point in life and that you have many productive and enjoyable years ahead of you. However, unless you’re pretty stupid or highly accomplished at self-deception, you also realise that after 40 you’re fair game for the Reaper. A terminal lump or a telltale twinge could appear for the first time on any given morning and no one, least of all yourself, would have the right to be the least bit surprised. If you die younger than 40 it’s a tragedy, after 40 it’s a shame.
There are also a couple of other, less usual, emotions I’m feeling after hearing the bad news last week.
Anger and shame.
You see, it doesn’t look like our friend died from what she went into hospital with in the first place.
She died from an infection. Whether it was contracted in the hospital or not is unclear. Maybe we’ll never know. Hospital staff have learned to be quite coy in discussing such matters.
My own father spent the better part of seven months in hospital last year. He underwent major surgery to remove his cancerous bladder and, to our surprise and gratitude, pulled through surprisingly well. Then the infections started. He was in and out of hospital, mostly in, for six months. He came close to death at least a half dozen times. And throughout that time I kept thinking ‘Why can’t they keep him free from infection long enough to get better and get out of this place. What the f*ck is going on here.’ It was like torture, and it went on and on. My father is a tough and stubborn man who had the full-time support of a very dutiful, extended family. Other, less fortunate, people would have just died.
Our hospitals are death traps.
Even according to triple-spun government figures, something like 5,000 – 20,000 people die in the UK from hospital contracted infections ever year. Something like 100,000 people contract infections without dying. I’m not sure anyone knows what the true figures are. I have no doubt that there is a problem. My own experiences and those of nurses I know and have met over this last couple of years leave me in no doubt of that.
So, when a friend of ours dies in a UK hospital from an infection, I can’t fight back the nagging thought that, if she was in a hospital back home in New Zealand, she might have made it this time. I shouldn’t even be saying such things and I would never dream of airing such thoughts to her family but the suspicion is there in the back of my mind.
That’s reason to feel angry and shameful isn’t it?
The fourth richest country in the World and we can’t keep our hospitals clean. We spend countless billions on machines, drugs and surgery yet people are dying from lack of basic hygiene.
It’s fucking medieval.
I’m certainly not blaming the nurses. Almost without exception they are fantastically dedicated people. Nor do they consume much of the colossal amount of money spent on our health service. Most are paid less than, say, London Underground ticket collectors who are considerably less well-trained and much less pre-occupied with the welfare of their fellow creatures.
But someone is to blame. Someone is wasting all that money. Someone is pursuing a twisted set of priorities.
Underlying all that anger and shame is the thought of my government and its behaviour. I think of all the billions of pounds and other resources expended on the domestic ‘War on Terror’. And I wonder how even more deranged and expensive all that nonsense would be if terrorists were killing 5,000-20,000 people in Britain every year, rather than the current rate of none per year. And then I wonder if Tony Blair or any of those people who rule us would ever die, or expect to die, as a result of piss poor hospital hygiene…
Somehow I doubt it.
So here I am sitting at my PC…
It’s 5.30am
I went out for a curry last night with a couple of guys I used to work with. They fed me beer and spicy food whilst I outlined how I would strike down those who had wronged me in the past, all at the same time, Godfather style.
It was a damn fine evening.
But here I am at this ungodly hour quite unable to sleep. It’s not that the curry damaged me per se, I’m far too hard for that, but I can still feel its fire in my stomach and in my limbs. It is as if my very arms are coursing with lava. I can’t sleep. Maybe I’m a superhero. Curry Man! A house special jhalfrezi and lager powered force for good in an increasingly troubled world. That would be fun. Mind you, I'm a bit old to be finding out stuff like that these days.
We partook of our meal at our usual haunt; the Ravi Kebab on Drummond Street near Euston Station, the thinking man’s Brick Lane. With all of the rich curry flavour you’ve come to expect but with none of the pissed-up City workers and too cool for school trendies that so blight Brick Lane
Drummond Street is also less exclusively Muslim than Brick Lane and features a smattering of Hindu style vegetarian restaurants, side by side with places offering meatier, more Islamic, fare. It all seems to tick along well enough with few, if any, border disputes and little or no talk of nuclear exchanges between opposing restaurants. Sadly, Drummond Street offers little opportunity to use that Sunni and Shia joke I’ve been working on lately…
And naturally, given our location, the subject of the Official Opposition to the Labour Government came up in conversation.
Yes, George Galloway MP
At the last count he was outnumbered by something like 645 to 1
There’s a film in his story somewhere and Schwarzenegger surely is the man to play George. If only he wasn’t a State Governor … or a Republican...
‘Arnold Schwarzenegger IS George Galloway. They deposed his friends in an illegal war. They tried to frame him for a crime he did not commit. Now he’s heading to Washington and he’s looking for payback’
‘I’m coming fer yer Tonee Blairrr but furst I’m gunna chin those wankers in America and then I gunna take yer down yer blood stained wee bustard.’
George is clearly trying to achieve what no British act has managed since the Beatles and Sheena Easton. He’s trying to crack the lucrative, but difficult, American market. Many have tried, from Oasis to Robbie Williams, and only time will tell if George has the necessary star potential. He’s started off well though.
When George was elected pretty much every politician and media pundit wrote him off as a self-serving creep who would fail to represent his constituents. Barely a couple of weeks after being elected he’s sitting in Washington calling the American administration a bunch of lying, corrupt, murderous scum on national television.
Part Exodus, part A Team, you could almost hear George saying to himself ‘I love it when a plan comes together’ as he lit his enormous celebratory Havana cigar afterwards.
And rightly so. The US Investigation into the ‘Oil for Food Scandal’ is a shameless attempt to demonstrate that everyone who stood against the Iraq War; the UN, the French, the Russians, Galloway, did so to line their pockets. The conclusion of the investigation will be ‘The US was forced to go to war because these people broke the sanctions. Therefore the War and the death that went with it is their direct fault’. That’s the plan and kudos to George for peeing in their pool.
It is a very big pool though.
You really do have to laugh at the quality of the forgery that supposedly implicates George in the Oil for Food scandal…
What the f*ck is that? My two year old niece could do better with a pair of plastic scissors and some paper glue. They’ve got to be kidding…
Not only are our intelligence services too stupid to actually plant some WMDs in Iraq, they're employing irredeemable retards in their forgery sections. Forget about morality for one moment, there's a very serious value for money issue here.
I genuinely don’t care if Galloway is a self-serving slimeball. He’s the only person saying what needs to be said, out loud and in the plain. As well as being the right thing to say it’s also damned fine sport to watch. I want more. Lots more.
I would hazard to guess that the majority of his constituents are well-impressed with George’s progress to date.
Let’s not f*ck about here, both the American and British governments ARE pursuing an anti-Muslim agenda. All this talk about our governments only targeting a few bad apples is bullshit. It’s a Crusade and Dubwa has used that term on more than one occasion.
It’s a partly a Crusade for oil but also an attack on religion. An attack on religion that should worry us all greatly, believers and non-believers. But I’ll leave that for another post.
In the meantime I’ve got an mp3 of selected George highlights on my player and I might even get round to jazzing it up a bit with some remixing and a backing track at some point…
‘Proven fact, mother of all smokescreens, contrary to your claims, contrary to your claims, on a pack of lies, lies, lies, lies’
Yeah baby
Seamus
After writing yesterday’s post I spent a little time reading up on the latest developments in viral marketing.
Viral marketing is all about 'exploiting pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through viral processes similar to the spread of an epidemic'.
The Holy Grail of viral marketing is to achieve, that other buzz term, a ‘tipping point’ when awareness of their product breaks into the mainstream, takes on a life of its own and becomes completely self-transmitting and self-replicating.
Obviously, viral marketers don’t actually introduce real viruses into society, though they’d like to, and are probably working on some right now. No, until recently they’ve restricted themselves to coming up with 'amusing' screensavers, on-line games and other e-content that they hope people will pass onto like-minded friends within the same target demographic.
Most of that stuff is rubbish though isn’t it? Personally, whenever I get an automated email referred to me by a friend entitled 'Have you seen this?' or 'Great New Game' I trash the fucker. Life is far too short to sit there downloading tedious Shockwave flash movies and lacing my PC with cookies. Usually.
Anyway, most of this supposedly hot new marketing thinking is just the same old stuff dressed up in different trousers. Publicity stunts, product crazes and catch phrases have been with us since the year dot. Ah, the days of space hoppers, slinkies and those sweets that exploded in your mouth drawing blood in the process. What was that stuff called again? Oh yes, Space Dust.
Having said that, there are some marketing developments that do seem genuinely new. I’m particularly taken with the concept of neuromarketing which, amongst other things, involves connecting people to brain scanners and seeing which bits light up when they drink cans of Coca Cola and Pepsi. You can see where the guys doing this work are headed from a few choice quotes that tickled me…
"...researchers suspect that the inescapable influence of marketing does more than change minds. It may alter the brain."
"They seek to understand the cellular sweetness of rewards and the biology of brand consciousness. In the process, they are gleaning hints as to how our synapses might be manipulated to boost sales, generate fads or even win votes for political candidates."
"They have glimpsed how the brain assembles belief."
"They have begun to obtain the first direct glimpses of how marketing can affect the structures of the brain."
"We think there are branded brains"
Sounds like fun research and I reckon they’d make a lot more progress if they could get to work on political prisoners and other undesirable elements imprisoned in the 3rd World somewhere.
The problem for advertising people is that most of us, particularly the better educated and more media literate, react negatively to someone trying to force-sell us shit.
One of the real joys of Eastern Europe in the early 1990s and parts of the undeveloped World through to this day was marvelling at the crude advertising standards companies could get away with…
‘Increase the size of your manhood! Eat Snickers! King Size
‘Unhappy? Drink our beer!’
‘Buy our brand of cigarettes and attractive young women will want to have sex with you’
I remember sitting in a hotel room in Manila a few years ago awe-struck by the commercials on a local TV station. Two stick in the mind. The first was for a pill that would make your children grow to be as tall as Western children within a few months, featuring tape measure-wielding Europeans in lab coats, carrying out a controlled experiment on a group of Filipino school children. The second was for a brand of vaginal deodorant that portrayed a succession of virile looking young men crinkling their noses as they passed a distressed matronly 40-something woman sitting at a typewriter. In the second half of the ad, after applying said vaginal deodorant, she looked much happier surrounded by a group of half a dozen studs fighting to chat with her. My Filipino is poor but I got the impression at least one of them was saying 'Wow! You're so much more attractive now that your muff doesn't stink'.
Now, in the West, we’re far too clever to be fooled by cack like this aren’t we? Well, maybe not that clever. But we have seen it all before. The challenge to the marketers is to package their message in a format we don’t suspect and deliver it from a completely unexpected direction.
In short, they have to become even better liars.
One of the things I’ve noticed now that I’ve passed Life’s halfway mark, hopefully just past, is that a lot more is coming out of my head than going into it.
That’s only natural I guess. The senses are beginning to dull, the number of available brain cells gradually diminishing and what storage capacity remains is already full. Being older also gives you more perspective. You are able to classify ‘new’ experiences based on similar experiences from your past. You start to perceive patterns and rhythm. There are a finite number of stories under the Sun and you’ve learned a fair few of them in the course of your travels.
So, instead of asking ‘Why? Why? Why?’ like a child, you find yourself stalking people at social occasions, or the Internet, and crying out ‘Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!’. Only you can’t shout as loud as you used to.
It’s the natural order things.
Being older means you’ve also had time to see the future realised
… and see what a let down so much of it is.
No personal jet packs. No Elixirs of Youth. No paperless offices. No leisure society. No Peace Dividends ...
and is it just me or is everyone working longer hours, doing increasingly tedious, soul-destroying, and insecure jobs that we'll all have to continue to do till the day we die? Only we can't because we'll be made redundant long before then and have to spend the last twenty five years of our lives eating dog food.
I don't remember those developments being predicted in Tomorrow's World.
I’m also old enough to remember when we British used to laugh at other countries and congratulate ourselves for having the good sense to be born somewhere as wonderful as Britain. How we laughed at the state of French public lavatories, chuckled at images of Japanese commuters packed into trains like sardines, sniggered at the same Japanese people working out their frustrations by watching sadistic game shows, and pitied America, a nation of obese, brain-dead consumers, glued to their couches, slurping down processed shit and watching endless TV commercials.
We’re not joking about that stuff anymore are we?
It’s all gone a bit pants really. And, I swear, people on the street seem unhappier than at any point that I recall in my lifetime.
Hands up anyone who doesn’t think consumerism has something to do with it.
… and all the advertising that goes with it; ad after ad after ad.
Take television advertising. In recent years programs have been getting shorter and ads have been getting longer, and louder. It’s getting to the point on some channels that we have genuinely half-forgotten what we were watching by the end of the commercial break. Attention spans being what they are these days, the TV Channels really ought to start each program segment with a quick recap of the story so far. A few times recently I’ve taken to standing in front of the box during commercial breaks and performing little erotic dances or a few rudimentary coin tricks to keep Tracy amused but I’ve given up on that because she won’t take her turn.
I thought it was a cracking idea though. Shame.
So we end up watching the ads. Fortunately for me, I see my own basic insecurities as being a key part of my character and am therefore immune to 99% of all TV advertising. I’m a tubby, balding short arse and came to terms long ago with the basic truth that no product would ever change that reality, and nor would I want it to. Tracy is less resistant so I occasionally have to throw a blanket over her head or feign a violent coughing fit. The Sirens’ call is strong and there is no beeswax or stout rope in the house. There was a time when I would switch channels during ads but the TV companies got wise to that and they synchronise their commercials now.
There’s one ad on at the moment that annoys me above all and, no, it’s not the one for the singing chick and frog ring tones (alternative version here – it’s extremely obscene and plays through your speakers, so don’t say I didn’t warn you). No, there’s something even nastier and more insidious than that.
It’s the one for a new women’s magazine, Easy Woman or Woman’s Lebensraum or something like that. I’ve deliberately forgotten what it’s called. The ad features a group of women giving their order to a waiter in an upmarket restaurant …
‘I’d like the perfect pair of black trousers’
‘I’d like celebrity gossip’
‘I want lipstick that never smears’
‘I want a small handbag that can carry all the shit I’ve bought’
and toss like that
Not one of them has to good sense to ask for the perfect anti-depressant prescription for those tricky moments when buying lots of mass-produced junk leaves them feeling all empty, desolate and lonely; particularly when the credit card bills come through.
It’s not that this ad is any worse than all the other ads and TV shows out there. It’s just that, to me, it is so typical of all the other ads and TV shows out there that I hate it so very, very much.
Themes and ideas that won’t be explored in a television advert or program near you today, or any other day, currently include …
How to feel worthwhile as person without spending any money
Plastic surgery fools nobody and usually leaves you looking like a dickhead. Don't bother
Have you stopped still and really looked at a flower lately?
If you are nice to people they are nice back. Why not try and avoid being an arse on the train or in the car today and see how that works out for a change
So, what’s the deal? Am I advocating that everyone should be forced to watch It's a Wonderful Life (alternate non obscene, bunny version here), The Shawshank Redemption and Forest Gump whilst strapped in a chair under the influence of suggestive drugs; Clockwork Orange style?
Well, actually, yes.
And, as special reward for getting to the end of this post, here's a link to pictures of people who use their pets for transport.
Well, yesterday’s critical post about cats went down a storm.
… almost too easy.
Blog postings from the same series currently in the pipeline include:
And then there’s the one about people who frequent photography forums, pontificate about the superiority of their £3,000 lens collection and then fill the forums up with pictures of their pets taken in their back gardens.
That’s more of a speciality post, admittedly.
But then I get to pondering upon the broader subject of what kind of photos do I, and others, actually enjoy looking at.
The short answer to that question is easy. People generally only enjoy looking at pictures they’ve taken themselves or pictures of themselves...
I may have mentioned this story before but a friend visited me once, shortly after returning from a driving trip along the West Coast of America (you know who you are). He popped a cassette of his travels in my VCR. The high point of the tape consisted of a long clip of film of the view through the windshield as he drove, slowly, from one end of the Golden Gate Bridge to the other. My friend was clearly thrilled to relive this classic footage in my company whilst, at the same time, I was soundlessly mouthing the words ’Why are you doing this to me? Why?’
The full, non generalised, answer to the question as to why people look at other people's imagery is a tad more involved and best broken down into chunks:
Why do amateur photographers take pictures?
Why do amateur photographers display pictures?
In this respect, sites like Flickr are a fantastic alternative to the pre Internet destination of 99.5% of all photographs – an old shoebox in a cupboard somewhere. On the subject of Flickr, there is clearly some motivational overlap between photo sharing and personal blogs. Though, I’d say there’s a wider range of impulses behind personal blogs; cries for help, the search for kindred spirits, voices in heads, late night insomnia attacks, and all the rest. Even if the intention is there, only a very skilled photographer would be able to communicate a personal blog style message purely through imagery. Having said that, community style photosharing sites like Flickr and their interactive commenting systems might change that. Mmmm, I wonder what a Cry for Help Photosharing site would look like? Maybe I should give one a try.
Why do people look at amateur pictures?
Because I’m a photo nut I DO look at other people’s pictures, out of a sense of curiosity and wonder. When I am looking at those pictures I am constantly, and subconsciously, asking myself 'why did that person take this picture and why are they showing it to me?'
Motive counts for a lot and comes through in a photograph. A technically poor photograph that reflects the sense of humour or humanity of the photographer or the subject will always be intrinsically more interesting than technically better images captured by, or of, tossers.
To be continued - when I’m feeling more erudite than that last sentence.
