You Never Die On Facebook

Driving to work yesterday morning, I stopped to admire the Sunrise Over Slawit. It's a sight I only get to enjoy on certain weeks of the year - by next week, when the clocks go forward and the sun rises an hour earlier, I'll be too late to catch it. Luckily I had my camera with me this time. This is the old Wireless Station on the appropriately named Pole Moor. The lines in the sky are jet trails, I hadn't noticed them when taking the picture, I certainly wasn't trying to line the first one up with the pole...

Turning 39, I've been thinking a lot about getting older. Is it wrong to be looking forward to retirement at my age? I'm so fed up of the working grind and feeling uninspired by how I spend the majority of my waking day, I long for a time when I'll be able to get up when I like, go out and enjoy a sunny morning like this, spend more of my time writing and doing the things I enjoy. I suppose that's only natural, but I don't want to start wishing my life away either...

In the Grauniad magazine this weekend they had an article featuring photographs and interviews with people who had lived beyond their 100th birthday. It made sad and sobering reading. Although some remained positive, many spoke of simply waiting - even wishing - to die. They appeared to have little pleasure in their lives, had long since lost most of their friends and even family (one man, aged 108, told of how his only son died at the age of 64), and couldn't even rely on their own bodies any more. So much for living to a ripe old age.

Is it better to burn out or fade away? A former colleague of mine died last year, still a young man. I hadn't spoken to him in years but we'd exchanged brief communications on Facebook. I'm reminded of this every time I visit that site now, because his profile is still active. Either his family haven't been able to delete his account (it's hard enough when you're alive - imagine trying to do it for someone who's died) or they've decided to leave it open in his memory. The internet grants us all immortality, whether we want it or not. If you're reading this post in the year 2085, I hope I'm not still around to read your comments...

I don't want to die tomorrow, but I have no desire to live forever - or past my usefulness either. (Some might argue I'm already living on borrowed time in that regard.) I just wish I had more time to enjoy the prime of my life...

We should all be allowed to retire at 40. 20 years of the working grind is enough for anybody. Maybe then I'd get to lie in the sun more like our Wispa...

(Because what the internet really needs is more pictures of cute cats. If you're reading this in 2085, I doubt that has changed.)

This Blog Is Not For Sale

A couple of interesting emails have plopped into my inbox lately. I guess this blog has been going long enough, gets enough daily hits, and ranks high enough in Google Analytics (or whatever) that it has a certain perceived value. I never understand how you value a website - how Facebook or Twitter can be sold for billions for example. I know it's got something to do with the evil industry, but as my own relationship with the evil industry is such a painful one, I prefer not to delve too deeply. Anyway, while Sunset Over Slawit isn't quite at the stage where Aaron Sorkin is penning a screenplay based around my life, it's obviously been noticed by somebody. To wit, email #1...

We have a client who would like to pay you for the opportunity to post some of their content on your website. All of the content is professionally produced and you can select from pieces relevant to your audience.


The result is you get some free, interesting content for your readers while getting paid.


In return our client is asking for one link that they specify at the bottom of the content (no porn or gambling). Feel free to contact me with any concerns or clarifications you may have.

My first reaction to this was... really? What client? How much?

My second reaction was... hang on, WHY? Why would someone want to use this silly little blog to hawk their filthy wares? OK, so I'm now getting about 200 hits a day (though I have no way of knowing how many of those are spambots), but many of those hits must be the same people coming back again and again. Hell, half of them are probably just Steve. Surely there are more cost-effective ways of blowing your marketing budget than throwing it at me to squeeze the occasional ad for Pepsi or Apple in between My Top Ten Furniture Polish Songs and Why I Hate Audi Drivers post #463?

(Neither Pepsi nor Apple - nor Audi - gave me any money to mention them in the paragraph above. I actually prefer Coke, Microsoft and any other form of vehicular transportation ever invented to the brands in question... which I why I chose them. To avoid favouritism.)

My third thought was... surely those people who visit this blog every day do so exactly because they want to read content written by me? Which, given that my goal in life is to be a writer - and have my writing read by others - fills me with joy and pride and a buzzing in my nether-regions equivalent to Kate Winslet brushing past me in a negligee with a mint condition copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 tucked in her armpit. (In short, thank you all.) BUT if the reason you come here is to read me... why would you want to read some "free, interesting content" written by somebody else with the sole purpose of getting you to click a link and buy something?

So, thanks, but no thanks. If you want to pay me to write something, even something that promotes your wares... I'll give it a shot. I've gratefully received some nice free books, graphic novels and music as a result of writing this blog - and written about them whenever I had something worthwhile to say. But just copying and pasting someone else's words and using the goodwill of Sunset Over Slawit to peddle some old bollocks I have no interest in whatsoever... thanks, but I get enough of that in the day job.

But wait... we're not done yet! Because then comes email #2...

I represent a firm that purchases entire blogs, that is, the URL as well as the content of the blog. We use these blogs to improve the search engine rankings of our clients.


Our firm requires that the blog has correct English and grammar. It must have original content (not duplicate content from other blogs or websites) as well as having no pornography or other distasteful content. In addition, the blog must be able to be found on Google.


If you are interested in selling your blog(s), please reply with your URL(s) as well as your asking price(s). An actual offer for your blog would happen after a detailed analysis of it that showed that it met all of our criteria.

The email then goes on to suggest that, given the right t&c's, and based upon my current Google Ranking, I could make around $500 from this deal. Which isn't to be sniffed at, I suppose - especially when you're as skint as I am.

Except...

Well, my first thought was "bollocks".

My second thought was... WHY? Why would you, as a legitimate business, wish to purchase a blog with an unsexy URL of http://moviebookreview-s.blogspot.com/ (hardly Audiscumbags.com, is it?), the content of which varies most weeks between misanthropic short stories, reviews of crap Nicolas Cage movies, and My Top Ten Songs About Global Thermonuclear Destruction? I just do not get it.

But, as we already established earlier this year when I considered moving this blog wholesale to posterous, I'd lose a good chunk of my readers if I wasn't where I've always been, and you all mean far too much to me to piss you off like that for a measly 500 bucks. That's not to say I wouldn't be open to a better offer...

If you enjoyed the free, interesting content above, please consider clicking on this link and spending a stupid amount of money on the aspirational, life-affirming products available there. If you didn't enjoy the free, interesting content above... go take a long walk off a short pier. Who needs you?

Favourite Shirts

I threw out my favourite shirt this weekend. It was a thick, wooly, green and brown checked affair that I'd had since I was a teenager.

Below is a PARTICULARLY unflattering photo of me wearing said shirt in 1996, taken by a former colleague and linked to on Facebook (yet another reason to hate that site). Seriously, I've posted some terrible, terrible, NSFW things on this blog in my time, but this is definitely the most disturbing.

I'm

giving

you

space

to

click

away

now.

Don't

say

you

weren't

warned.

And yet, as much as I hate that photo, I can't help but feel a swelling in my heart and a weight behind my eyes as I look upon it now... because I'm wearing my favourite shirt.

That shirt and me, we went through so much together. As the years went by, it became my official "winter walking" shirt. I'd come home from work, change out of my work clothes, put on that shirt (over whatever T-shirt / undershirt I'd been wearing all day) then head off up into the hills. Whatever the weather. I'd wear a coat too, but even if it was just a kagool or an anorak, I wouldn't ever feel the cold. Because that shirt was THICK. It was WARM. It was like a wraparound security blanket. It was like a hug from an old friend, and during its prime, I didn't have many friends - certainly none that would be prepared to give me a hug. It made me feel comfortable. It made me feel a little less alone in this vast, cold, uncaring universe.

But nothing lasts forever. After 20 plus years, that shirt was little more than rags. I'd patched up the elbows, resewn the buttons, ironed out the creases so many times... there wasn't anything left holding it together. I'd worn it out. For the last year or so its remnants have hung in my wardrobe like a spectral tatterdemalion, unwearable but unthrow-out-able too. But there comes a time when you have to switch off the life support and say goodbye. No charity shop would have wanted it, so with heavy heart I consigned it to the wheely bin. Guilt, grief, regret... all these would follow.

Goodbye, old shirt. Thanks for the memories. Have a Haircut 100 song on me...

Friday Flash - Love Song

First #fridayflash short story of 2011... and I've actually managed to keep below the 1000 word limit. I'm sure that won't last...

Love Song

I’m in your bedroom, writing this song, trying not to make an obvious rhyme like ‘but I keep getting the words wrong’ because I know you wouldn’t respect that. You called me “the greatest lyricist of our generation” after all, do you remember, Evie? Of course you remember. It was the day we met. Well, the day we first communicated. The internet’s an amazing thing, isn’t it? That it could bring us together like this. How could you have known when you tweeted “I love Terry Tribeca, I want his babies!” that I’d be sitting there in my peeling wallpaper hotel room after that piss-bottle gig in Newcastle, late and lonely, just looking for someone to make me feel worthwhile... that I’d see your message and think: ‘thank you’?

You became my muse, I’m apt to confuse, the thoughts… the thoughts… the thoughts… This new album, Evie, it’s all about you. You had such a shock when I replied, you couldn’t believe it was me. Even though it had the verified tick next to my picture to prove the account was genuine, you were certain it was just my manager or somebody in my entourage mucking around. “Entourage”, ha. I guess my world seems a whole lot more glamorous from the outside. The crazy thing is, 15, 20 years ago, I probably would have had an entourage. I’d have had a record company that threw money at me, I’d have had stylists, publicists, photographers, hangers on… but those days are gone. Like I told you that first night we chatted, I don’t do this for the money. I do it because I have to. Because the songs are inside me, screaming to get out… and if I don’t have that release, well, I think I’d just go crazy, you know? Lose it completely. The songs keep me sane.

Not everything’s an accident, sometimes you have to be provident, if you want to make a start, in matters of the… The following night, when we bumped into each other at that club in Coventry, that wasn’t just coincidence, you know. I can tell you this now, we’re close enough that you won’t think... I went there to find you. I saw you talking to your friends about it on Facebook and as I didn’t have a gig that night and it was only a couple of hours on the train and I thought it’d make for a good song… Knock-Outs, remember? You said you didn’t think someone like me would be seen dead in a place like that. Didn’t I get recognised all the time? The truth is, hardly anyone ever recognises me. Your friends certainly didn’t. They didn’t even believe it was me. Yeah, I’ve been on the cover of the NME and my face is all over the internet – but everyone’s face is all over the internet. Unless you’re actually looking, you wouldn’t notice me. I’m not exactly a pretty boy, though “my unconventional look matches my unconventional lyrics,” says Alex Petridis in The Guardian. Though I guess since meeting you, my songwriting’s become a whole lot more conventional. You know I almost wrote a ‘swim any river, hike any mountain’ song last night? Maybe I’ll have a pop hit and flush my indie cred with it. That shit doesn’t matter anymore. I want to take you to Paris and Rome and New York, and not in the back of a fucking tour bus, Evie. I want my own private jet, like Bono. I never wanted to be Bono, but for you, Evie, for you I want to be Bono. I want to be whatever you want me to be.

I saw you in the arms of another, I went to pieces, then and there. I knew I wasn’t your only lover, just don’t tell me more for him you… Clumsy. That’s fucking clumsy, man. What’s happened to my writing? It used to come so natural. My mind’s on other things right now. That second time was a mistake, I admit. You were with your fiancée at that restaurant in Nuneaton. Not the classiest of establishments, but Michael wasn’t really the classiest of guys, was he? When I saw where he was taking you for your anniversary… I wanted to show you how much better you could do. That’s all. Crispy duck and a cheap Merlot? Is that really all you were to him? Caused quite a scene that night, didn’t he? Your ex… I know, I know it’s an adjustment, thinking of him in that way after all those years together, but you need to try. Part of you still expects him to walk in the front door any minute and start whinging about his shit day again. How much he hates his boss, wishes he could find something else, always wanted to be a fireman. Of course I read your blog, even though you don’t use your real name, enough of your friends know about it, leave messages on it, link to it… it’s hardly a secret. That post you wrote about me, long before we even met, that was what convinced me. You understood. And yet, by him, you were misunderstood. “Shame he’s not hunky enough to be a fireman - LOL!” That’s what Rachel wrote in your comments. She was right, of course, Michael was hardly a body builder. He couldn’t even fight me off.

You can’t have her, Mike. You’re not the man she really likes. I saw you leaving your office at night. My alibi is airtight. Mike. I know you don’t want to hear the details, Evie, but it’s done now. You don’t need to worry about him any more. We can get on with our lives. Come on, Evie, open the bathroom door. Talk to me. I’ll turn the music down if you promise not to scream again. Please, Evie, don’t be mad. Open the door. Don’t be like all the others…

The Social Network

A movie about Facebook starring the current king of loveable geeky losers and Justin Timberlake?

I'll pass.

A movie about Facebook written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by David Fincher, and also starring the new Peter Parker?

Oh, go on then.

Unlike Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg himself, The Social Network rarely puts a foot wrong. In choosing Jesse Eisenberg to play Zucker, it gives welcome vulnerability to a role which otherwise would be hard to sympathise with. The fictionalized account of the legal squabbling, back-stabbing and bitterness surrounding the origins of the common people's favourite website (being a web-snob and misanthrope, I hate Facebook) allows Aaron Sorkin to do what Aaron Sorkin does best - take complex legal, business and even technology-based issues and weave a human story out of them, using his trademark snarky, fast-paced dialogue and oodles of sharp wit. David Fincher's direction, by contrast, is competent yet unshowy (apart from one rather tacked on boat race sequence set at Henley Regatta). He does present Harvard as a dark and gloomy place where you wouldn't be at all surprised to find Gwyneth Paltrow's head in a box, but apart from that he seems content to let the script and cast carry this story. Eisenberg does very well with his most difficult role to date, the Kid Who Would Be Spider-Man convinced me he's up for that part, and Justin Timberlake was a dick... perfect casting all round then.

The only question I have left is just HOW Facebook became a billion-pound business. I get the advertising potential, but I can't say I've found myself ever noticing the ads while I'm on that site. Admittedly, unlike many people, I don't spend a lot of time on there (once a week, maybe even less) - but are there really billions of advertising bucks to be made from just one website? That's one thing I wish Sorkin had explained in snappy, Howard Hawks style back-and-forth banter... 'cos I just don't get it.

Oh, and in case you missed yesterday's late announced celebrations - this is Sunset Over Slawit's 1001th (1001st?) post. I demand a cake!