News from the Cotton mill

A conversation with someone last week, on the subject of my Most Favourite Celebrity in the Whole World Ever, mwah mwah mwah, snuggle:

'I facking hate Fearne Cotton' I said, glint in my eye.

'What's wrong with her? She's alright, isn't she?' replied someone I'd met 2 hours previously.

'She's the most irritating, patronising, overexcitable, insincere presenter in the world. Can't stand her.'

'Fearne Cotton? She's the blonde one, yeah?'

'Yep'

'Oh. I quite like her. Didn't realise she was on Radio One though.'

'How can you quite like her? Her vocabulary consists of one word. "Amazing". Everything's amazing. Everything's so exciting. Fearne, your shoe is on fire. "Amazing!!!" She'd attend the splitting of a toenail and gush about how amazing it was the next day.'

"She's the one with short blonde hair, bit overweight?'

"Not really overweight. Long blonde hair. Annoying face. Slightly hairy, I expect. But bleached, like stealth face hair.'

"Hmmm. Presents This Morning?'

"No, love. That's Fern Britton.'

"Oh. In that case, I don't know who you mean. But she sounds like a right idiot."

True story. Anyway, I mention this conversation because a couple of days later Brennig, the little information beaver that he is, provided me with news that made my belly gargle with rage. The news was that Fearne Cotton, bain of anyone who has working ears, has been given Jo Whiley's slot on Radio 1. This moves her away from her wanky weekend slot which only whales, dolphins and other high frequency transmitting mammals can hear, and into mid morning, where she will be broadcast into any workplace unlucky enough to have a radio tuned to BBC Radio 1 during the day. My thoughts are with you.

But then he sent me the press release put out by this tower of deaf incapables at Radio 1:

"Fearne said: Jo is leaving very big shoes for me to fill and it’s nerve wracking. She has been a massive inspiration to me throughout my career so I have a high standard to live up to. The live music legacy will live on in the new show and I can’t wait to get started.”

Ooh! Excited again are we Fearne? Is it all very exciting? And what's this music legacy you speak of? Oh! Will you be playing more new amazing Kings of Leon and Arctic Monkeys and Keane songs and raving about how they're really really great, and that you saw them last night and you're all great friends now? Are you on crack, woman? Clearly, I was not the only one perturbed by this, as Emsbabee alerted me to the actions of another, more err, viciously active member of the FEARNE BEGONE! group:

"A man has been arrested for allegedly sending threatening text messages to Radio 1 DJ Fearne Cotton"

[source]

^ Fearne Cotton being taken away for crimes against radio ^

Not guilty your honour! But strange how the two incidents occured within hours of each other, wouldn't you say? Radio 1, I think your listeners are trying to tell you something.

She is excited. Your audience are not.

What the stats say

If you're looking at this blog, I know the following things. How you got here, how long you stayed for, what you clicked on while you were here, what ISP you're using, whether you've got an Apple Mac or PC, what browser you use, where you live and the company you work for. Then I can label you and track how often you come back. Scary that, isn't it?

Most of the time, I don't really care who you are or what you're doing here. Those are just the details available to me and most other bloggers. I'm aware that if I go onto someone elses blog, I'll probably be tracked, it's part and parcel of blogging. We do it to be nosey and for a bit of security. As long as there's nothing odd going on, it's just another little bit of code on a website.

I've run this blog for three years and in that time, there's never really been much to worry about. Yesterday, during a little check of the stats, it became clear that someone has been getting here using some very interesting google search terms; they stood out from the randomness that you usually get. Let's just say they were very specific.

I worried a bit, wondering what that person might think and considered shutting down the blog for a bit. Then I thought actually, this blog's not that bad. When I write, it's not a matter of taking cheap potshots at someone close to me, or badmouthing a certain company, or giving shit to anyone other than people who wear luminous trainers. Oh, and Fearne Cotton. This blog has always been about things that affect my life and probably yours as well, it rarely goes into specifics.

In fact, anonymity only really matters to me because it's easier to write to a sea of blank faces, just like anyone who gets on a stage to perform finds it easier to have the audience blacked out.

So basically - to that person with the quick google fingers...re-read the first paragraph of this blog post. You're not onto me, I'm onto you.

MUHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAAAAAA etc

Lets be geeky

See, this is the real purpose of having an anonymous blog. The ability to really indulge your geeky side which spends most of the day clicking about on the internet and gets annoyed - not massively annoyed, not oh lord, I want to throttle you with a strawberry lace annoyed - but just slightly irritated with certain things.

Like Twitter. I know this is last weeks news, but I've only just realised how annoying it is now you can't see other peoples replies. Whereas most people immediately realised the downsides and tweeted about it all day, I didn't really get it. But now I do, so I can have a whinge. It completely does away with any sort of group discussion. Take Monday, when me and a couple of others were trying to have a nice game of Penis over Twitter. The problem was, no one could see what other people were replying to me unless you copied them all in each time. Bloody stupid. What was wrong with having the option? Now a game of Minge and Penis just doesn't reach it's full potential.

Then there's me mucking about with different blogging platforms more out of boredom than anything. At the moment I'm trying out wordpress and seriously, other than being able to make entries private...I'm at a loss with it. It doesn't let you put in simple codes to make stat counters work. You have to use their own one, which is like visiting the stoneage. It's pants. Even the spellchecker doesn't get stuff right; underlining the first two letters of perfectly well spelt words. Numpty.

And do you know what I hate more than people picking their nose behind me in their car, but less than Fearne Cotton?

Fussy websites.

Flash intros are the worst for this. What a waste of time - these days no one has the time to sit through a jamboree of swirling patterns and tumbling pictures. I'm like "SKIP! SKIP! SKIP!" I just want to get straight to the content, no messing. SKIP!

And OH GOD this one really takes the biscuit. When you click onto a website, or blog, or anything that's not your own iTunes and sound seeps from your speakers? Why, did I accidentally press play on a random strangers iPod? No, I don't think I did. I don't care what's in your last fm playlist and if I do, then I'm quite capable of pressing play myself. Why do companies and website and blog owners think it's a great idea to inflict sound on you the minute you get onto their site?

Err, I think that's it. For now. Feel free to add your own internet / blog / geeky irriating confession below. I won't tell the real world you care, I promise.

BLOGGING SELLS!

How much does your bog standard company pay its marketing department these days? If it's more than 15p a week, they're getting ripped off. In fact, if you're a managing director of a company which has a marketing department, and in a meeting they come up with some new fangled suggestion such as 'Let's use blogs to spread the word'... sack them now, and let's spend that 15p on a pack of biscuits for the people who actually put thought into their job.

I say this because chances are, they spend their days emailing bloggers at random - like myself, a 24 year old from London (that's right, the one in the United Kingdom), who writes about me and my London stuff, or you and your awful trainers. So let's recap, this is a UK blog, with (stat counter says) mostly UK readers and mostly a UK, 24 yr old kind of theme. No ads. No promotions (unless its a really, really good freebie)

Asking me to promote something that has absolutely no relevance to any of these things is like asking an untrained monkey to sing a Lady GaGa song: utterly pointless, unlikely to happen and does no favours for anyone involved. Least of all the poor, poor monkey who'd have to listen to that vomit-inducing bile in the first place.

Oh, god - I hate Lady GaGa almost as much as Fearne Cotton.

It used to be just the odd fellow blogger, or online sex / furniture shops wanting my interior design expertise and "feedback". But lately, there's been a few legit, normal companies, American companies for the most part, wanting me to devote an entire post (one that would normally contain me whinging about my hangover) to their washing powder. For this, me and my readers get $2 off (does that include postage to the UK?) and "some cute little Snuggle bear widgets you can pop onto your blog to share with your readers ". Aww. Schnuggle wuggle. And I know you'd love all that.

This mass marketing strategy baffles and worries me in equal measure. When it's all a bit random, when it's clearly a case of "grab these email addresses, fire off some emails, tell 'em what a savvy blogger they are, and bingo, let's sell some washing powder"...I just think: there are a lot of unemployed people about, yet clearly the culling process has not yet extended to the buffoons in marketing.

Twitter mania

Is it wrong that I feel cool for having clocked on to Twitter way before the Daily Telegraph got hold of it and did their explanatory "And this, people over 50, is a newfangled WEB THING called TWITTER!"

As I now follow enough people to actually get some fairly good nuggets of time wasted on there now, it kind of keeps me occupied. I'm not sure anyone really knows what to do with Twitter when they first sign up, but eventually it's like this little unicorn of impulsion takes you and suddenly, you must tell SOMEONE...nay... 66 people... what you just did.

I'm pretty sure half the population of Twitter have just signed up to feel a bit special about having a private line to celebrities though. Personally, MC Hammer was only good for that "HEY! HAMMER TIME! NAH NAH NAH NAH...Can't touch this!!!!" tweet which I couldn't help send him, but the rest of the time I never really know what he's on about. Every man and his dog's wife now follows Stephen Fry, you can't bloody get a word in edge ways.

In fact if you click on the username of anyone who has got a reply from a Twitter schelebrity, you will discover that they do indeed spend most of the day trying to elicit a response from their new famous friends. It's like seriously, chill out - stop trying to be Stephen Fry's Best British Friend, this ain't facebook, toots. Take this guy for example, whose current fascination is getting Jonathan Ross to admit to having two distant friends called Tommy and Alan. To the stalker's credit, he got a response in the end, but I can only imagine it was accompanied by a distant, spoken message of "Bloody hell, there are some right weirdos on here, Jane" which our guy will never hear. He's moved on to badgering Stan Collymore now, anyway.

So in conclusion, yes, it does make me feel all down with the kids and cooler than The Times (which did a '100 best blogs' in the Culture section this Sunday. Cringe). And yes, sometimes I do like to pretend that when I used my new found connection with Russell Brand to say "ooh you're on twitter. I think a little bit of wee just came out" that he put my name down on his "to do" list. Yes, I do think it's a wonderful little way to pass the time and keep in touch with bloggers which give me belly tingles.

But bloody hell - these schelebrities and their followers don't half take up a lot of space on the screen. Pipe down.

Actually, just before I press send, Stephen Fry actually said something half interesting:

stephenfry :
Did interviews with Sunday Times and PA (both British) before filming scene. Journos more interested in Twitter than Bones.

stephenfry :
Worry that talking about Twitter too much will somehow spoil it. But hard when asked all the time.Don't want to become a bore on the subject

It's not you that'll make it boring, Mr Fry. It's your famous-friend-hungry followers.


PS. Is Fearne Cotton on Twitter? I'd bloody love that. Please say she is? I'll be good, I promise.

Cold

I've been trying to think of inventive, entertaining and witty ways to tell you about my cold.

Unfortunately for you, this is all I can come up with.

I have a cold.

I'm tired, snotty and would rather be at home in bed.

My grand plan was to come in, check emails etc, then upon realising I am not needed, go home from work early and not come in tomorrow (my boss is away for the next two weeks anyway) but the minute I left my house this morning, I realised that I'd forgotten my keys.

For the last two minutes I've been prodding and twisting the blue squishy wrist rest in front of my keyboard, contemplating what the blue thing's made of.

Oh yeah. Last night I spotted Nicky Hambleton-Jones off the Channel 4 programme 10 Years Younger on South Bank. She walks funny. But then I walk funny too, my heels got trapped in the gaps between the slabs on Waterloo Bridge 3 times then twice again in the cobbles once I got to the other side. I'd like to blame the pavement or my choice of high heels, but I think I'll just blame Fearne Cotton for that and my cold, because I haven't blamed her for much lately.

Oh wait, hang on.....yep, I think I just bored myself.

I'm definitely more tired and bored than when I started this post about 45 mins ago.

I'll go now.