Mara's Musings

Thank you Dad for all the times you were there for me - the time you sat up all night blowing on my scalded foot so I could get to sleep when I was four, for helping me when I cut the skin of a huge blister and spent hours in agony until you stepped in, climbing up on the adventure playground to get me down when I got scared, for fixing plugs, buying stereos and putting up with my music and for understanding when I knocked 10 bales of hay out of the boy who called you an "AyTai Surrender Monkey".  Thank you for all the times I resented (and downright hated you!) for being an "unreasonable parent"  - insisting on bed times, curfews, groundings etc, and for instilling in me a sense of right and wrong.

And thank you for putting the food in my belly and clothes on my back.

Thank you for being a Dad as well as a father, and simply being there, the rock on which we all depended, and for loving me unconditionally.

Any man can be a father - but you are a real Dad.

I love you.

Just want to encourage people to check and follow this blog, NeverSeconds, - one primary school student's attempt to raise money for the Mary's Meals charity led to her being banned from photographing her school dinners by her local council.  They have now said she can continue her good work. 

Hopefully they will also sort out their pretty yukky looking school dinners!

Good luck Martha!

• Many of my sentences start with "Back in the day..", or "These days...."  - this is usually in response to younger people saying something about how ridiculous something now is, eg, the amount of health and safety, or moaning about being bored, having lots of housework to do etc.

• I can't stand other peoples kids!  - actually I think they are lovely as long as I can't hear them or they in any way impinge on my own equilibrium.  Having gone from being able to zone out 3 kids whilst I studied for nursing finals, the mere whimper from a child is now enough to send me into spasms. That said I do love listening to them play outside, love their little cute ways and feel weepy when they do sweet things like sing in choirs but don't tell anyone.

• I blame everything on "my age" - from aches and pains, to forgetting something, to bad periods, feeling hot or being grumpy.  It's all down to "Me age".

• Conversations with similarly aged friends always include an account of our latest ailment or a moan about something that seems to be prevalent "these days".  Usually followed by blissful reminiscing about the 1970s.

• I get excited about the possibility of buying a shed.

• I still think that 1976 was "the best summer ever".

• I bitch much more. My "live and let live" attitude has developed into a "live my way or die".  Other drivers, inconsiderate neighbours, loud music, or a constantly barking dog will all send me into a paroxysm of wrath. 

• Although happy to continue my usual activities eg, camping in a muddy field for 10 days at Glastonbury Festival there is usually a point where I say "I'm getting too old for this sh*t".  Usually when I am stuck up to my knees in mud at 3am on the way to the toilet.

• I sigh loudly at the sight of some of what passes for fashion "nowadays".  Call me old fashioned (please) but looking like either an American criminal advertising for bum sex/a harlot just isn't that attractive. 

Of course the plus side of getting is older is I don't care what other people think of me, I don't get asked for ID, I never have to worry about getting wrinkles because I already have them, and grey hair?  ffft.  That's what hair dye is for!  Now, where's my slippers...

I am currently seeking a 3 bedroom property to rent in Glastonbury, Wells or surrounds in Somerset.  I have a partner, a 16 year old daughter and a dog.  We both work.  In fact I have 2 businesses and a part time job.  My partner is self employed.  We currently pay iro £1.2K a month between us in rent as we live separately due to both having very tiny houses.  My landlady is now selling so we decided, OK let's pool our resources and get a place.  We have references, deposits and so on.  So what is the problem I hear you ask?

Obstacle 1 - self employment.  Letting agents hate the self employed because we are obviously completely unrealiable.  I mean, we all just loll around all day doing nothing or searching for poor unfortunate landlords to rip off.  The fact that you are already paying rent and have done for 30+ years is irrelevant. 

Their solutions: 1) get an accountant.  Um, we can't afford an accountant.  Ok, then 2) give us 6 months rent up front (usually around £5K) plus our (extortionate) fees and charges for credit checks which we can get online for £9.95.  Right.  Thanks.

Obstacle 2:  Benefits.  Housing benefit?  forget it.  Tax Credits?  Possibly, but mostly not. 

Obstacle 3:  Pets.  Sorry no pets.  Extra deposit? No sorry.  Current reference for dog? Nope.  Meet the dog? No.  Inspect my house for dog poo or general dog destruction? No. 

Their solution: get your dog put to sleep or give it to a rescue.  Nice.

Obstacle 3:  Cost.  3 bedrooms under £750 pcm.  Don't make me laugh! 

Their solution:  We can offer you a rabbit hutch for £700 in the arse end of beyond...any good? 

Obstacle 4:  Letting agents' attitude to renters.  Some have developed looking down their noses and making life as difficult as possible into an art form.  Basically this only applies to a small but significantly obnoxious few and I must add that the vast majority of letting agents I have met (and boy I have met a few lately!) are very nice and helpful, within the boundaries of the extensive rules they seem to have developed in the last 18 months.  I am currently compiling a list of letting agents in the area to help people that find themselves in my situation and there are 2 agents in Glastonbury/Street who are not going to be pleased with their less than rave reviews.

and finally today I discovered another obstacle for you: CHILDREN. 

So top tips  to get a house:
Have a minimum of £5K sitting in the bank.
Don't lose your job.
Don't be self employed.
Get all your pets put to sleep.
Get your kids into care or just don't have any.

Then you may be able to rent a small shack with an outside water supply.

Happy house hunting!!

I have just got back from a 10 holiday in La Palma, one of the Canary Islands.  Apart from the weather there were a number of striking contrasts between that area and the UK which really makes me wonder why things are the way they are here and how necessary a lot of what we deal with here actually is.


Food

The price and quality of the food is outstanding, most of it is local.  In addition most of the items which we are very heavily taxed on in this country are taxed much less but the Government still manages to gain revenue.  Compare the price of wine and cigarettes in La Palma (around 2-3 euros for a decent  bottle of wine and 2 euros for 20 cigarettes) to England where you are looking at at least £5 for a drinkable bottle of red and £7 for a packet of cigarettes. At the time of writing 1 Euro =  85p. And it is pretty much the same for meat, fruit, veg and your essential items.  Eating out you can get a 2/3course meal for 2 for under 20 euros and this usually includes a glass of wine of beer.


Society

The biggest contrast was in the general conduct of society out there.  I only saw one CCTV camera whilst I was there - and that was in the airport.  Were their marauding villains everywhere?  No.  There were a couple of police ambling around during the day, stopping for coffee and chatting to folk in the town and that was about it.

The other thing there was an absence of was signs saying how much you would be fined for x-y-or-z.  I saw one "don't let your dog poo on the grass" sign.  Suprisingly, although dogs probably outnumbered human beings 4 to 1 they were not wading through piles of dog poo.  Their whole attitude towards dogs is very different too, there aren't "bad breeds" just bad owners.  The owner is responsible for the behaviour of their dog, not the dogs.

There were no gangs of youths standing on street corners with their trousers half way down their backsides, no maniacal drivers screeching up and down the roads blasting stereos out of the window.  And actually I didn't even see a speed cam.  For a European nation with a history of apparently having a "macho" culture, the men all seemed pretty chilled out.  They certainly didn't seem to need to out-strut each other or use their cars as extensions of their penises.  Likewise, none of the women or young girls seemed to have the urge to walk about exposing acres of  flesh or trying to squeeze themselves into lycra that was 2 sizes too small.  There seemed to be an absence of what I like to call "youth cloning" where everyone dresses and does their hair the same way.  Everyone seemed confident enough in themselves to be perfectly fine about doing their own thing, developing their own style and just enjoying life.

So my question is - Why the difference?  We are the most spied on nation in Europe yet our crime rate still seems pretty high.  We have CCTV and speed cams everywhere yet people still race around like idiots and seem to get away with it.  We have signs about dog poo, smoking, and drinking in the Street.  We are taxed to the hilt yet the Government still make cuts.

I think the thing that came across most is that people seemed to have much more pride.  They seemed less angry and beaten down than people within the UK and took a pride in themselves, their homes and their general demeanour.  Maybe we should start getting to grips with these issues as a society and re-establish the importance and promotion of self respect, respect for others and personal responsibility.  If we had these expections as a society then it would be such a nicer place to be. 

Maybe I'm just turning into an old fart but I may well be retiring outside of the UK!!

This blog is about issues of online privacy when using social networking sites like Facebook.  However, it can equally apply to discussion forums or content that is put up anywhere online.

What Facebook and online forums give us is the opportunity to vent immediately over things that we feel strongly about and we post whilst we are vulnerable/angry/desparate/drunk and so on. It takes away the time we used to spend mulling things over and thinking before speaking.  Most of us will fall foul of this from time to time.  We have all seen people post negative remarks or comments about work colleagues, their boss, friends, lovers, and details of their personal life.

The first thing to bear in mind is that when you are posting on facebook is that you are essentially posting publicly to the internet regardless of the security settings you choose on each post.  This information is freely available to you within the Facebook Help Centre, if you know where to look and are prepared to dig far enough.

"I have custom privacy settings" is an oft-used phrase regarding facebook privacy, and it is really just lulling you into a false sense of security.

In a nutshell what the privacy centre on Facebook tells you is that:

Setting the initial post/note or status update to "friends only" will not prevent people who are not your friends from seeing what you post on Facebook.  If anyone clicks "share" you instantly lose control over who can see your original post.  The control over visibility passes to the person who displays that content on their page via sharing.  Even blocking a person by name will not save you if they are friends with someone who subsequently share the original post.

So how does this happen in reality?  In many ways, for example:


You post a status and set your privacy as "friends only".
Someone on your wall clicks "share".  Now all their friends can see it too.
Not only can they see it, they can also click "share" and so on.
One person shares but their privacy is set to public.  Now it's out there for anyone to see.
Combine this to the fact that anyone can at any time change the privacy setting on their own "share" from "friends only" to "public" and it is easy to see how your information, personal facts, comments, photos, and posts can easily permeate through and become visible world wide.
Pretty soon it is all over the place - this is often referred to "going viral" when applied to blogs, videos and so on. Which gives some indication of the speed and distance things can spread very quickly in a short period of time.

Of course you can see if a post has been shared but not who has shared it.  Once it has been shared, it can be shared on again and again, and you would have no idea of how many times the post has moved on.

Always remember that a Facebook "friend" is not necessarily someone who will act in a way associated with real life friendship.  If you do not know them in real life consider the word "contact" as a more accurate assessment of their role on your page. It may change your perception enough to stop and consider your posts more carefully.

We have all seen posts like these on Facebook.

The other thing to recognise is that people can and do do is take a photograph of the screen (known as "screen capture" or "screenshots") which then provides an image of your blog/website/note or post.  This can then be saved and/or printed, attached to emails or posted up on other websites and forums and widely distributed online. I have known people get presented with screenshots of inappropriate posts and conversations on their arrival at work the following day.
If you think I am exagerrating take a trip to the website Failbook.  You will see thousands upon thousands of statuses, images, notes, pictures and so on that have been photographed and shared in this way and then float about for all eternity in the ether.  Of course they give us all a good laugh - until we end up on the receiving end of it through an ill-conceived post.

So what happens if the worse comes to the worst and you end up with your inner rants out there online for all to see?
First, remove the original post.  It may seem like bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted but it is still good for damage limitation. Once deleted the post should disappear from view even if shared.  It won't get rid of screenshots that arrive in failbook or on your boss' desk but it does show a willingness to accept and rectify the problem, and lends weight to any apologies you may need to make.  It also prevents new comments being added later only to resurrect the issue, and it gives the post a chance to disappear into the distant internet memory vaults. Out of sight out of mind.

If your post was about a person or company and it has been seen things can get tricky.  Many of us have seen the above image and it is all very amusing to everyone except the person who posted it. Your first port of call, after you have removed the offending article or post is to accept that the responsibility for the situation is yours and to apologise to the people involved.  Do not try to blame the victim, the sharer(s), Facebook or the booze.  You posted it, and unless you were being forced at gun point, there really is no one or nothing else you can legitamately blame.  Accept that perhaps a social networking site was probably not the best forum to discuss your issues. If necessary apologise publicly in the place you originally put the post.  Once that is done, let the matter lie, and whatever you do do not get dragged into discussing it any further online:  even if you think things could not get any worse.  They can.

If you put something personal on your status, which you are happy to share and receive upsetting remarks remember you not have to put up with this!!  Simply delete the offending posts, and if they persist then delete them as friends and block them.  People who are probably quite meek in real life can become the most appalling bullies once they get behind a computer screen!  If it upsets you, get rid. 

In conclusion:

When posting anywhere on line it is worth remembering that:

• People on facebook and online forums are often strangers and are not real friends.
• Some people are not very nice.
• Some people will use any opportunity to pick a fight on any issue (internet trolls).

And most of all ALWAYS remember this:

• Personal information that you do not want to become public knowledge should never be posted anywhere on Facebook.

• If you would not discuss this with a friend in a pub full of strangers or anywhere it could be overhead then do not put it on facebook.