What's right in Twitter World?

Welcome Tweople to the Twitterverse for a tweethearts view on life and Twitter...

Now, if most of that first sentance didn't make sense to you, and you think that I have in fact joined a bizzare cult and learnt a whole new language, then you probably don't enjoy the 140 character life updates that are allowed on Twitter.

I've often wondered why some people tweet (for the uninitiated thats an update on what you're doing in the confines of 140 characters) what they do tweet, and if there are some subjects that are just avoided on principle. I know I don't talk about work, or where I live, or more personal things, but I must admit that it is very cathartic to just rant away in such a small little white box, you can work out just what you are feeling, and let everyone else know. I like that I can discuss my political viewpoints and some key issues to me and not worry that I am going to be judged for it, I can for all intent and purpose, by myself, but a more concise and interesting me.

Is there anything you wouldn't tweet about? And is it the same and things you wouldn't not be comfortable talking to your friends about? Or are you really fully aware that strangers can read just what you're thinking or doing.

Some people are quite happy to tweet that they just stepped in poo...

"Have given up on eve stroll because a) I'm being bitten alive b) I've trod in cow poo c) I need the loo..." (@Leedsbird)

Some people are quite happy to tweet about things you probably wouldn't ring someone just to tell them...

"Bought my phone a sock, it's time my communication device has *real* comfort" (@MissPeg)

And some celebrities just forget that they have a vast following who might die a little from happiness at the next tweet...

"Well I can check "strip in a Louisiana bar while writhing around on Ty Burrell's lap" off the ole bucket list." (@Olivawilde)

Twitter seems to have an over arching theme of acting like friend, counsellor, judge and jury all at once, you can get feedback on any comment almost immediately, and you can offer someone else a word of encouragement (or 140 characters) if you think they need it. For the most part though, it seems to be happy, political, and active, its about getting involved, and having your say, even if its just by who you are following. (I am choosing to ignore that there is 'celebrity bashing' or 'fake people pretending to be celebrities' on twitter as so far i've avoided these 'lovely' people.)

Soon someone will make money out of creating a personality test for your 'i follow' list, and you'll worry about whether you should admit to liking a celebrity just because everyone can see, but for now many of us revel in the geek status it affords us. We can see what 'such and such' is doing next week, and who 'so and so' is having dinner with this Friday, and you might even find out that your 'real life' friend is coming to visit.

Now, there are two things about twitter that I would like some clarification on...

Trending topics: now, how the chuff do these work? Do people just spend all their time typing one word? Do you have to hash tag, or will it work without one? I have no idea how somethings get on there, is there a set number or times it needs to be mentioned? Or is it the right people tweeting about something, I'm obviously not cool enough to get something trending, so I shall, for now, just sit on the outskirts and laugh at how often, and how irate, the argument between pro JB'ers and anti JB'ers gets on trending topics!

Retweets: I get the whole, lets show support for important/funny events, and retweeting people you are following is cool, that’s a given, but why when you write something that bears no resemblance to anyone else’s life (its time and person specific) do random tweople retweet it? I don't know you, and I don't know why my ability to do something is now newsworthy... (though as a flip side when someone 'important' in twitter world re-tweets your comment to them, that is a GOOD feeling!)

Now the next step is to harness the power of twitter for the business, if someone has worked out how to do this, please let me know, I don't have a business, but if I can harness twitter I might just get one to be cool!

So, to mark my ability to get lost in the twitterverse, and even write a blog about it, I wrote a poem about Twitter. Why don't you have a go, see if you can beat me and do it in 140 characters?

I chose to tell the world today
About my biscuit fascination
I told them of my favourite kind
And when I like to eat them,
And then I constantly update
With a picture of my plate.

I tell the world about my good days
And more so when it’s bad
I tell the world about my sad days
And when I’ve got a little mad.

I chose to tell the world today
About the list I have of chores
About my plans to do it all
And when I just get bored,
And then I constantly remind
What a mess I’ve left behind.

I chose to tell the world today
About everything I do
And then I might even update
On what, I haven’t got a clue.

(c) Itinerant Poet 2010

"My hopes rise and fall"

It took us 6 months to finally get here, (and that doesn't include the time waiting for the first one after we'd bought the tickets) but last night was finally LA ROUX at the Academy!
Monday night is not normally conducive to festivities of any kind, let alone an hours drive out of the city, in rush-hour traffic (and an accident - not us, someone else) but it turned out to be a very nice evening.
Myself and the wife (to be) rocked up and found ourselves a nice little spot (which later turned out to be a little less nice as lady next to us seems to have dancing disease and couldn't stop flinging her long hair in our faces). And as we are currently rocking the 'only drinking once a week and not at all even if there is some kind of event on' vibe we supped on tap water and waited, all the while feeling very very old, and almost as if we were babysitting the first years at university all over again!!

Ou Est le Swimming Pool - Support band
New bands always come under the banner "connect them to a different band and add a verb or adjective to them to define them"... These ones are no exception... Friendly Fires/Hot Chip but rockier and a much more enjoyable set than we'd expected as we're a little sick of the one song that seems to be played on the evening shows on R1. Definitely a band to keep an eye out for (one of the lead singers looks like Andy Murray) and they were energetic and personable which makes for a very good support band. They even worked well as warm up to La Roux which meant that you didn't even notice that the set had gone by so quickly.



La Roux - The main event!!
I shall prefix this next paragraph with the one word that summed it up... AWESOME!
I shall now continue... Ellie Jackson was brilliant, in fact the whole band were, she hit all the notes (if you know the album you will know that there are some pretty high notes) and managed to come across as friendly and lovely, and you really just wanted to sit down and have a beer with her and ask her how her day went. The music was top notch, and the added joy was a lovely little acoustic set (sat in a car seat) playing the guitar... its a beautiful song "Saviour" and I shall (once this blog is done) go and hunt it down. It was nice to be reminded of their background, and a nice interlude to the dancey synth stuff of the rest of the night.

A number of people have commented in recent months, on my like-ness to Ellie, I'm pretty sure its the ginger hair, however some people are really really sure that we must be some long lost relatives of sorts... so this leaves me in a quandary, I have a mini-crush on her (as an artist and song-writer - I don't fancy her), and I must admit i really did want to steal all of Ellie's clothes, (i am actually going to make my own Gold striped leggings over the weekend). and be able to carry off the quiff with a little bit more conviction than i do at the moment (i wimp out at a really long one)... but...If I want her clothes and to dance like her is that a little bit egotistical of me to feel like i can try to be her just because the odd person said we look alike, or can i carry off the fact that i just like her style and ignore the fact that we look alike? argh!! (as a side note it seems that my family is very prone to singer-look-alike ness, my sister is the spit of Avril Lavigne!!)

So, I think I will just listen to the music, and blame my 80s fascination for the sudden appearance of gold leggings and the green boyfriend blazer that I seemed to have acquired a while ago...

The sportman/woman

I've often wondered if I'd actually had time at school away from being a geek in the wrong social groups and actually taken the time to do more sport would I have been any good??

This may be a random thought process, after all it's been nearly 9 years since I left secondary school and a long time since I embraced my geekdom but today got me thinking.

Myself and the 'wife' played squash today, we've started to play once a week and it's a good way to get some exercise but I often get to the point where if I'm not playing as well as I feel and I can I get really frustrated with myself. In the end I play worse for the tantrum than if I accepted that I should just relax and play. I've always thought that I just have high expectations of myself and think that I should try harder and when I struggle I blame myself and get cross with me. But recently it's come out that unless you really know me this might just come across as a big strop and very unsportsmanlike and a bit crap.

Can I still be very sportsmanlike and still have high standards of myself??
I've never managed to stick at a sport, at the moment I am a 'what if' kind of sportsman I seem to make a Very good beginner but then something gets in the way... Cricket at school- on the boys team but no one to play, squash- I didn't think I was very good so I didn't play for school more than once, rugby- played in the US but damaged my knee in the uk and now work and life stops me joining a team, fencing- knee damaged, archery- good beginner but...

So really I just find an excuse not to be good at something, I don't give it a go in case I'm crap, which is an odd juxtaposition as in my writing I still do it even if I don't think I'm very good...
Is it just a personal flaw in self confidence or circumstance that's always just stopped me finding out??

It's a complicated world...

It feels like a Thursday, but that in itself is no bad thing, i quite like Thursdays, and the added bonus is that it is actually Friday, which means that it is indeed the weekend (and by it being Friday means that I get my weekly Keeley Hawes fix!!).

Politics seems to be the buzz word today, I get why we need to pay attention to the results from the General Election, however we had BBC News24 playing all day (via the wonders of the internet) at work and until i disappeared downstairs at 2pm they hadn't even mentioned that the rest of the world existed... were we watching some magical time machine that kept going back to the start of the hour as if the rest of the news didn't exist, or had my colleague actually just put the election bits on and I was just being dumb... it's interesting...

As a side note, its the Malvern Flower Show tomorrow (well it's actually on over the whole weekend but I'm going tomorrow) so I can pretend to myself that I'm a) a horticulturalist b) a photographer c) I have a garden to put all my purchases in... Sometimes if I close my eyes its very easy to put myself 5 years in the future where I have all these things and can revel in them, is it stupid to dream of a garden as opposed to something more important? I think maybe thats the me dreaming as I sit in my 2nd Floor Flat in an affluent area of the city where all I can do is look at our poor Charlie the chilli plant and wish it looked a little bit more alive (the cold weather has frozen it I think!)

DCI Gene Hunt is about to do something rash, so I might leave it on that note...

Thinking point of the entry....

Can you justifiably dream of something, or desire something, merely because you don't have it, or is it merely the not having that makes you want it...

Edit: Thanks to my first follower (SP) and some new dawn rational sense I realised that this might be taken as being the same thing... what I meant to say is...

Do you dream of something because it is your ideal and something that you really want, or do you just want it because you don't have it... or do these things live hand in hand and therefore cannot be separated?!

IP