Nothing is Secret

Warning:  This post contains indelicate language (but only in the first and last paragraphs).

When I came to live on Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland four decades ago those of us who came from outside the area to work that year realised quickly that life here had a different quality to that to which all of us had been accustomed.  David (of David and Molly fame) turned to me one day shortly after our arrival and said "You know, Graham, people here know that you have farted before you have eaten the beans."

Things are no longer quite the same: amongst other things there has been a significant population change with outward migration of many Island people and an inward migration of people coming here to retire from England.

However the principle of our every move being known has far from lessened.

If you use Amazon, then, every time you look at it, the pages you visit are logged and you will soon receive an email making suggestions for things you might like to consider buying or, perhaps, tempting you with a price reduction in the thing that you were looking at.  Amazon are by no means alone.  Lands End has altered its marketing strategy in a number of ways but targeting you when you look at their site is one of them.  There are many companies now doing this.

Have you noticed, for example, that when you visit some websites with adverts that the adverts are tailored to you personally?  I suppose because I live in two places and move around a lot it is much more obvious.  British websites that I visit when I'm in NZ will have adverts tailored to my NZ life and even to Napier.

The obvious thing if one is concerned about one's privacy would be to disable cookies on the computer.  It is amazing, though, how many websites will not work if you disable cookies.  I discovered this when I tried to log in to British Airways one day. Their website said that I could not access it because I had cookies disabled.  I think I am writing saying that some banks do the same.

Today, however, even I was surprised when I realised that one of the posts on Facebook was from FlyBe telling me the cost of the flight I had looked at a few days ago and suggesting that if I went back to their website then I might get a better offer (leastways I think that was the temptation being offered):

For those of us with a computer and who use the internet and who also have a cellphone (and particularly a smartphone with GPS) our every move is logged, our every thought is logged, our every want is logged and there is no escape.  Now my neighbours may have precious little idea about what I'm doing but Google, Yahoo and just about everyone else knows that I have metaphorically farted before I have eaten the virtual beans.  And they know about you too!!

Bentley at Le Mans

A few months ago when I was in New Zealand the subject came up somewhere in Blogland of pictures which we had in our houses.  I have brought some of my pictures back from New Zealand this time and the question has arisen as to where they will be shown.  I have many more pictures than I have space to show them so I swap some pictures around.  This has the advantage that I become more aware of the pictures and I actually get to see more than I would see if they were always static.  Of course some pictures just live in 'their' place and never move.  This is happening to more pictures as time and the collection progresses.

Anyway I thought I would accede to the request and show you some of my pictures over the next few months.

The first one (for no particular reason) is one which John and Sue bought me for my 60th Birthday.  The story is that John and Sue and I had been having lunch in Angoulême when I was staying with them in France and we went to a gallery and I happened to see this picture and remarked that I liked it because it portrayed the Le Mans race of 1929 and a Bentley 4½ litre 'Big Six' similar to the one which my Uncle Eric had possessed.  No 10 shown in the picture won the 1929 race.

The picture is now in my living room over the roll top desk which was also Uncle Eric's and which was and is one of the few 'things' I possess which is of exceptional importance to me.  It lived inside the front door of the cottage in Clophill in Bedfordshire that my Uncle lived in when I was knee high to a grasshopper.  I always wanted to roll my marbles along the roll-top but Mum forbid me to do so.

On Giving Your Country a Bad Name

I don't know about anyone else but I judge people on who they are and I have no interest in where they come from insofar as judging them is concerned.  I was born and brought up in a city in England  where there seemed to be hardly any English people.  This was in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.  Almost everyone in Liverpool seemed to have come from somewhere else.  People were Liverpool Welsh; Liverpool Irish; Liverpool Scots; Liverpool West Indian; Liverpool West African; Liverpool Chinese  and so on.  I do not recall there being any Liverpool people from the Indian sub-continent when I was small because they seemed to live in the more central Lancashire towns.  It is rumoured that there were Liverpool English but I am not sure that I ever met any.

As for nationality I have always adhered to the fact that being born in a kennel does not make you a dog.

Which brings me a tiny bit nearer to the point of this post.....just a tiny bit nearer.

This afternoon I received a phone call from an 'Unavailable' number.  I did as I usually do and put the phone back in its cradle without saying anything as soon as I heard the familiar patter.  The phone rang again.  I did the same.  It rang a third time this time showing 'International' and then 0017324521133 and a very indignant voice wanted to know why I had hung up on him.  He was, after all, a technician from Windows who needed to help me.  I broke with my traditional silence and said words to the effect that I wasn't prepared to listen to a rogue, thief, charlatan, scammer and so on and did he really think I would stand having my intelligence insulted in such a way.  I quite surprised myself.  He hasn't rung back.  He probably thinks I was very rude and inconsiderate.

The voice was one typical to my ear of someone from the Indian sub-continent.  It did fleetingly make me think that people like him give people from his country a bad name.  Then I though about that loathsome (I accept that is a personal judgement based on hearsay because I've never met him) ex-city trader and professional politician Nigel Forage's comment about Rumanians.  I only know two and nicer, better educated, honest and more beautiful people you could not wish to meet.  They give people from their country a good name.  Then I thought about all the rogues and scoundrels from petty thieves to billionaire fraudsters from the UK (some of whom we have even managed to incarcerate away from society for a while).  And then I stopped thinking.  

After all, despite having lived the greater part of my life in Scotland and with no residential affinity now with England, I might shortly be classified as an alien and have to apply for residency or citizenship in what I consider to be my own country or, if Scotland joins the EU, be treated as a visiting resident from another EU country (just like an Italian or Rumanian or Pole or....the list is endless).  Just as all the persons born in Scotland and now permanently resident in other parts of the UK might be in a similar situation.

I Am an Ecological Vandal (Apparently).

I have often been accused of being an ecological vandal and having far too large a carbon footprint.  I live alone but I have two homes on opposite sides of the globe and I use an aircraft to commute between them.  I have two cars.  In fact I have two of most possessions where others only have one and often that one is shared between a whole family.  In other words I utilise a far greater quantity of the earth's resources than I would do if I had an ounce of green in me.  I've never really seen it like that but I am making no attempt at defence.

However even I was a little surprised at the carbon footprint of a purchase I made this week.  I use plastic storage boxes (a non-green thing to do anyway) and the ones I use in New Zealand are  designed and made there and are far superior to the ones that I use here in Scotland.  Needing some more I ordered some of the same design and make as the ones that I use in NZ.  They arrived this afternoon.  Much to my surprise they are not made in Europe under licence but are made in NZ and transported here.  They do not stack so take up a huge amount of space for their value.  So not only do I use plastic boxes but I use plastic boxes with a huge carbon footprint.

Would that stop me buying more?  I'm sad to say that it wouldn't.

If you are wondering why I think they are so superior it is because the clip is on the base and clips onto the rigid lid.  The others all seem to have the clips on the lid and eventually the less rigid sides of the box make it less easy for the clips to hold.